Dragon's Master?
by MintLeafeon
Summary: The last dragon. Who will be the master of the last dragon of the world? What dangers will await the pair? What will the master do once he finds out his connection with the dragon? Rewrite in progress
1. Prologue

Dragon's Master?

Disclaimer: Nothing at all in this story belongs to me. The only things that actually belongs to me is the OC named Rose.

Prologue

Legend has it that there is a dragon like no other. Dragons once ruled the land the people lived on and were once one of the most honored creatures of society. Soon that all became a myth as more and more dragon hunters came for the skins of dragons. Only one dragon had survived the massacre and has been living somewhere in a lake in some land. The dragon is waiting for its' master and is waiting for the human to appear. Dragon masters have many responsibilities passed onto them once they make contact with their dragon. The dragon will be a reflection of the masters' strengths and will protect their master at all costs. They died for their master, they died with their master, they lived to protect their master, and they lived to make sure their master had a good life. Who is the human who will become the master of the last dragon? What troubles will await them once they meet? What will the master do once he finds out what he truly is to the dragon?


	2. Trial 1:Trip?

Chapter 1: Trip?

"Nya, that was a cool myth neh Fujiko?" Kikumaru, the red-headed acrobat of the Seigaku tennis team asked.

Fuji smiled at his friend with his eyes closed into thin slits. He had light brown hair and he replied to his hyper friend, "Saa…the dragon seems too good to be true."

Kikumaru was about to reply until he saw something-or someone in this case and yelled, "Ochibi!" The hyperactive red-head ran over to the boy he named 'Ochibi' and glomped him much to the boy's distaste.

"Kikumaru-senpai…can't…breathe…" the young 12-year old prodigy of the Seigaku tennis team replied. The boy had short black hair with emerald green tints and had cat-like golden eyes.

Oishi, the mother of the team, saw this and ran over quickly saying, "Eiji, let go of Echizen! He's starting to turn blue!"

With that the red-head let go of the prodigy and Ryoma, the young prodigy, nodded to Oishi in replace of saying 'thanks.'

Fuji said, "Saa…we better get going or we are going to be late for practice."

Kikumaru paled and suddenly yelled, "Nya! I don't want to run anymore laps for practice." With that, the four left towards practice hoping to not run laps.

When the four reached the courts they were glad at what they saw. The two 2nd year regulars were arguing once again. The boy with the spiky hair and the violet eyes being Momoshiro, one of the power players of the team, and the other boy wearing a bandana being Kaidoh, the residential 'snake' of the team. One boy was trying to calm them down who was Kawamura, a seemingly calm boy at first but if he ever got a racket he would completely change into another personality yelling 'Burning' and other English words. One boy with glasses that always covered his eyes and scribbling down in a notebook saying his seemingly favorite catchphrase, "Ii data…"

One other person was watching the two bicker seemingly not caring. "Momo! Kaidoh! 20 laps around the courts for causing a disturbance," yelled Tezuka, the captain of the team, who practically had a record for not showing emotion.

The two second years grumbled before starting on their laps.

The coach, Ryuuzaki, called the regulars in for a meeting since the other members had already left.

"What is it sensei?" Ryoma asked.

Ryuuzaki replied, "You nine shall go on a trip to Lake Virtue for some training and some relaxation before the next tournament. I expect you to train hard and to make sure you get plenty of rest. Be careful however. I have heard rumors of a dragon living in the lake kidnapping people and then those same people reappearing between a few minutes to three hours."

"Saa…sounds interesting," said Fuji, the resident sadist of the team, who opened his eyes slowly. Everyone took one look and cringed at the thought of what might happen with Fuji around.

Ryuuzaki recovered from her scared state and said, "You will be excused from practice for the next two days to prepare for the trip.

"Will you be coming with us sensei?" asked Oishi.

"I cannot come with you. I have to take care of the club while you are gone. Now hurry and go home to start packing. You will be there for a week or so." With that, Ryuuzaki waved her hand at the group signaling them to go home and pack and relax before their trip.


	3. Trial 2:Legend or Truth?

Chapter 2: Legend or truth?

The nine regulars gasped in shock at the view of the lake. The lake was enormous and covered enough land to occupy over 20 tennis courts. The shore was covered in sand and there were huge trees surrounding the back of the lake. The sides of the lake were covered with shrubs and other plants. Little burrows occupied the dirt surrounding the sandy shore and served as a home for many different animals. Close to where the regulars were was a small river and a small waterfall falling into the lake. They could see another small waterfall at the other side of the lake to let the water flow out. The regulars could see all the fish in the lake and all the forest animals drinking the water. They were amazed at the site and now realized why the bus was not allowed to go past the marker half a mile away from the lake. They people in charge of watching over the lake wanted to preserve this lake as a habitat for animals and made sure that no pollutants could reach the lake.

"Sugoi! Nya, isn't this amazing Ochibi!" Kikumaru glomped Ryoma once again while the latter tried to struggle out of his grip.

Once Ryoma made it out of his senpai's 'death hug' he replied with an 'Aa' and a small nod.

Everyone's eyes were filled with delight staring at the lake before a woman, who looked like a 20 year old, walked up to them asking, "Are you the Seigaku tennis team?"

Tezuka looked at the woman and replied, "Hai."

The woman looked at the nine of them and then said, "Follow me to your cabin then."

The regulars followed the woman and ended up at a two-story cabin that had over ten guest rooms and more than enough space for the regulars.

The woman then looked over at the regulars and asked, "Have you heard the rumors of the dragon in this lake?"

The regulars nodded 'yes' before she continued with, "If you have heard of it and are interested," she pointed at a billboard on a post a few feet before the sand, "you can take a look at that billboard. There are over 50 residents of the lake and nearly every one of them has been kidnapped by that dragon once. Each one has posted up something that has to do with the dragon. If you are interested in that dragon, I suggest that you look at it for more information." As the woman finished, she bowed to the regulars and walked off towards another cabin which seemed to be the office for all the workers who were preserving the area.

The nine regulars went into their cabin and each chose a room to reside in for the next week. They decided to get something to eat except for one person.

"I'm not hungry right now. I'm going for a walk," said Ryoma as he put on his white fila cap and walked out the door. The other regulars went to the cabin that was labeled as the cafeteria. Ryoma walked over to the billboard with the information about the dragon. He skimmed over many of the posts about what the dragon looked like. There were some posts that were piled on top of each other and Ryoma thought it had to be because they were the same thing. He kept skimming over the billboard reading some things and spotted many traits. He noticed he was starting to get hungry and went up to meet with the others who were sitting by the lake eating their lunch on the sand.

"Saa…Echizen?" Fuji said as he saw Ryoma approaching them.

"Nani?" Ryoma questioned.

"Why were you looking at the billboard about the dragon?"

"Che, none of your business senpai." Ryoma sat down and grabbed an onigiri from Momo's stack of food and began to eat much to Momo's displeasure.

Kikumaru jumped up, ran over to Ryoma and glomped him saying, "Nya Ochibi. What did you find out about the dragon?"

Ryoma would have answered if he was not getting glomped to death by his senpai and it took Oishi, Momo, and Fuji to pry Kikumaru off of the poor boy so that he could breathe again. After taking a deep breath, Ryoma said, "Over the posts I have read, it seems that the dragon is extremely intimidating. Some posts state that the dragon will glare at you until some people ran away or attack it. The people who ran away posted that as soon as they started running they were knocked unconscious and woke up to find themselves at the sand shores. The people who attacked the dragon stated that as soon as they either tried to hurt the dragon or hit it, they would be blown to the wall and knocked unconscious before finding themselves at the sandy shores. People who observed the lake stated that the dragon kidnaps five people a day every three hours starting at nine in the morning and the last one being taken at nine in the evening." Ryoma took a deep breath after he said all the information he found on the dragon. He had never talked this much before about anything and wasn't planning to do so again for a while.

The regulars were surprised that Ryoma researched on the dragon that much to learn so much information. The regulars were as interested in the dragon as much as Ryoma was. They wanted to meet the dragon and before they could ask whether Ryoma found any more information, the boy stated, "The posts say that no one knows where the dragon's cave is so no, I don't know where the dragon is."

The regulars hoped that they would be kidnapped in the week by the dragon to see it for themselves. One by one, the regulars got their wish and each one of them failed to make friends with the dragon.

Kikumaru was kidnapped that same day at three in the afternoon but he was so shocked at seeing the dragon that he didn't remember what happened.

Oishi was scared stiff when he was kidnapped at six and fainted before he could even see the dragon.

Fuji was kidnapped at nine but before Fuji could even see the dragon, the dragon stopped dragging Fuji and immediately placed him at the shores without even thinking to bring him into the cave for it sensed his sadistic side.

The next day Tezuka, Inui, Kaidoh, Momo, and Kawamura were kidnapped. Tezuka kept staring at the dragon with no emotion until the dragon decided to just knock him out and place him at the shore. Inui was too busy gathering data on the dragon to notice that he was being dragged before the dragon let him go before he even reached the cave, Kaidoh kept hissing like a snake which caused the dragon's temper to rise and slam him into the wall gently to place him on the shores. Momo was eating a snack and didn't notice getting kidnapped until he was unconscious on the shore. Kawamura was practicing with his racket so when the dragon kidnapped him, he swung the racket around like crazy hitting the dragon on the arm inside the cave before being found on the sand with his racket four feet away from him.

The last person to get kidnapped was Ryoma and the regulars were bugging him about it. They asked him to get information about the dragon if he ended up like them and when he was full of it he just glared at his senpais who backed up except for Fuji and Tezuka. Ryoma then went up to his room thinking '_Why is this happening to me? What the heck did I do? Kami-sama what did I do to deserve this? I hope that dragon kidnaps me tomorrow so I won't get stuck with questions about it.'_ Ryoma closed his eyes and slept.

The next day Ryoma was kidnapped at nine in the morning. What he saw amazed him.


	4. Trial 3: The Dragon Master

Chapter 3: The Dragon Master

He saw a dragon about a story tall, the dragon being a pure white with clear wings. The dragon had a star on its forehead, a sun on its left wing and a moon on its right. The dragon had shining silver claws and talons. The dragon had a long neck that resembled a giraffe and its mouth was in a frown which still showed its sharp teeth. The dragon had long legs that resembled a horse and looked very fit and athletic for staying in a cave for who knows how long. The dragon glared at Ryoma and he was starting to feel nervous. That is, until he looked at the dragon's arm. The dragon had a bright red bruise which he assumed was from Kawamura-senpai's 'visit.' The dragon slowly backed up and turned its body to avoid the bruise being seen.

Ryoma looked around for some materials and found some seaweed in the small pond next to the dragon and found some medicinal herbs on a high ledge on the wall. He turned and walked over to the pond and found a big leaf about the size of a watermelon and filled it with water. He then walked over to the edge of the pond and quickly pulled some seaweed out and dipped it into the water. He found two football-sized stones and laid them next to the leaf. He noticed the dragon staring curiously at him like it was wondering what he was doing. He paid no attention and decided to try to get the herbs from the wall.

The herbs were on a ledge high enough to be where the dragon's head could be. He tried climbing the wall only to climb up halfway before a rock underneath his foot crumbled and he fell. He expected to hit the ground and waited for the harsh impact of the ground to hit his back. But it never came. What happened instead surprised him because the dragon had reacted quickly enough to put its' head underneath Ryoma to safely catch him before he hit the ground. The dragon lifted its' head slowly to avoid making Ryoma tumble off and lifted him toward the ledge where the herb was. As soon as he could reach the herb, Ryoma grabbed it and the dragon dropped its' head slowly to let Ryoma down gently.

Ryoma looked at the dragon and nodded his head to acknowledge his thanks for the dragon. The dragon nodded in response. Then the dragon slowly laid down and held its' injured arm out as it seems that the dragon finally knew what the boy wanted to do for the dragon.

Ryoma started to take the herbs and grind them into a powder with the stones he gathered earlier. He finished grinding all the herbs into a fine powder and then walked over to the dragon with the powder, the leaf with the seaweed and water. He took some of the water and poured it onto the dragon's arm. He then put some water into the powder and mixed it to form a gel-like substance. Then he rubbed the herb into the bruise on the dragon's arm and once he finished he took the seaweed and wrapped it around the dragon's leg.

Ryoma started to hear a voice in his head. He thought he was hallucinating until the dragon started calling out his name even louder with concern.

"Ryoma…Ryoma…Ryoma…Ryoma?...Ryoma!" The dragon seemingly said without its mouth moving.

Ryoma had a look of shock on his face as he listened to the dragon.

"Now that I have your attention I want to properly thank you for helping me. It seems that you are the one." The dragon closed its eyes and tipped its head to the side with a smile.

Ryoma finally getting out of his shock replied, "N-No problem. Who are you anyway? And what do you mean by 'I am the one?'" Ryoma stared at the dragon with a confused look.

The dragon took a deep breath before responding to the question. "My name is Rose. I am the last dragon of my species. You have heard of the legend of the lone dragon, am I correct?" She waited until Ryoma nodded his head. "I am that same dragon from the legend looking for my dragon master. As you can tell from my voice I am a girl. I was just a baby dragon when that massacre happened, and I was able to hide from the hunters. Before I could get revenge however they all died off before I was fully grown, and I have remained in this lake looking for my dragon master. It seems that you are my master and my trusted partner."

Ryoma widened his eyes in shock as the dragon, or Rose, stated the last remark. He looked up at her and could only say, "Hah?"

Rose shook her head sighing before saying, "Looks like I have to explain everything. You have helped me when the others I have tested have either run away or attacked me. You were brave enough to help me and not run away. You were also subconscious enough to avoid attacking me or harming me in any way possible. You can also hear me right now which is another proof that you are my master. Only a dragon's partner can hear their dragon talk."

Ryoma shook his head to try and understand everything Rose said. "I see. Well then if I am going to be your master I have one condition."

"What is it?" Rose asked while tipping her head to the side with a confused expression.

"Do not call me master. Just call me Ryoma."

"Only if you call me Rose, Ryo-kun."

"That will work I guess, Ro-chan."

"That will work too." Rose smiled and so did Ryoma. After a while, they started laughing at their childish behavior.

"It has been a while since I had a normal conversation," Ryoma stated after calming himself down. "There is one problem though."

"What is it?" Rose questioned after she calmed down herself.

"How are you going to follow me around if you are a dragon who is a story tall?"

Rose looked at him with a dumbfounded look before laughing as hard as she could.

Ryoma looked at her like she was crazy and asked, "What?"

Rose stopped laughing long enough to look him straight in the eye saying, "That is not a problem. I can transform into any form that you are comfortable with." With that, Rose started to glow a bright white and then a cloud of smoke appeared. Ryoma coughed and waved the smoke away from him and widened his eyes in shock at what he saw. He saw not the dragon but instead saw a girl with pure white hair that reached down to her knees in a mint green dress and light red sandals. He saw that she had golden eyes like himself and had a star shaped necklace. There was an earring on her left and right ear that resembled the sun and moon respectively. She looked about his age and was the same height as him. Rose took one look at his face before raising her hand to her mouth trying to cover up her giggles. She thought '_The look on his face is too funny. I can't stop giggling. I have to change the subject before I burst out laughing.'_ "So what do you think?" Rose questioned.

Ryoma snapped out of his shock and shook his head before replying, "You look fine now. But won't people find it suspicious that I come back to my friends with a girl that I don't even know?"

Rose looked at him with a look that said, 'how many questions are you going to ask me today?' She then said to him, "Just make up a lie about how I'm your girlfriend or something. Anything you have to lie about to keep me around to protect you will be etched into your family's memory to make sure that they don't blurt out the fact they don't know who I am. Don't worry. It won't affect any of their existing memories. They will just add some new ones including me if you have to. Then we won't be in trouble. And besides you are having enough girl trouble. With me as your girlfriend your fan-girls can't come near you without me getting in the way, so you can focus more on tennis and school."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Ryoma said with a bored tone, "and are you going to lead us out of here?"

"Sure. Follow me." Rose replied and motioned for him to follow her to the back of the cave. In the back of the cave was a smooth wall. She said, "Open the gates to the land. Leaving behind my home of the water. Off to protect my new master," she motioned for Ryoma to high-five her hand and keep it there, "I hereby form a contract between dragon and master, Ryu Rose as the dragon and Echizen Ryoma as the new master. Contract is hereby formed and may we leave this place safely." As Rose finished the contract, the wall opened and revealed a flight of stairs that led to an abandoned cabin. As they walked out of the cabin Rose said, "I can only use this escape when I find my master. If I do not find my master, I can't leave that cave. If you look at the side toward the lake you can now see the cave being hidden by that waterfall that lets the water flow out of the lake."

"So that's why no one has figured out where the entrance is because they end up on the other side of the lake."

"That is correct. Now listen carefully Ryo-kun. You have to treat me like I am your girlfriend. Here is the story for right now. I met you when we were kids in America. I left for France and you left for Japan with your father for a visit. We kept in contact, but last year we lost contact with each other. You find me today wandering around the forest and we catch up on stuff. Something around that line ok?"

Ryoma was confused about many things and asked, "How did you know I was born in America or that I used to visit here with my baka oyaji?"

"When dragons form a contract with a dragon master, we learn anything crucial we need to know about them and vice versa. You should know my abilities and yours as well now."

Ryoma looked at her and suddenly thoughts about her powers came into his head and what he could do as well. She told him to shake the thoughts off for another day and he did.

The two walked back to the regulars who were running around screaming "Echizen! Ochibi! Ryoma!" They walked hand in hand to make the dating scheme look real and as soon as Ryoma got to the regulars, they still did not notice him yet. Tezuka was massaging the bridge of his nose, Inui was gathering data on the regular's reactions, Fuji was looking at them amused, Kaidoh was mumbling something about Momo being a 'baka' and Kikumaru, Oishi, Momo, and Kawamura were running around frantically about what to do with Ryoma being missing for over two hours since nine in the morning.

Ryoma walked over to Tezuka and said, "Ohayo buchou. What's going on?" As soon as Ryoma said that, all the regulars turned his way and the four running regulars ran up to him and started asking question after question. That is, until they heard someone yelling, "Stop bothering my Ryo-kun!"

The regulars took a look at where the yelling came from and were surprised at what they saw. A young girl about Ryoma's age who nearly looked like an angel, was standing in front of them and yelling at them about Ryoma. Ryoma walked over to Rose and said, "Hey Ro-chan. Thanks for that." He decided to keep up the act and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

The regulars all had looks of shock on their face including the stoic captain Tezuka, Fuji had opened his eyes, Inui had dropped his notebook while the others just gaped like goldfishes.

Kikumaru snapped out of shock first and hesitantly asked, "Ochibi, who is this girl?"

Ryoma looked at him before replying, "Minna, this is Rose. Ryu Rose. She is my girlfriend…" He continued on with the story that Rose said they should use and as he kept speaking these words, his families memories were being altered to add in new memories about Rose. As soon as Ryoma was done talking nearly all the regulars were on the ground shocked at what they had just heard.

1) Ryoma has a girlfriend,

2) Ryoma didn't bother to tell them and

3) She was as pretty as an angel.

The regulars thought how could they not be surprised when their little baby prodigy had kept such a secret and when they asked why he kept it a secret they fell anime-style when he answered, "You never asked."

Rose giggled at their antics and decided that she would truly protect Ryoma and those dear to him which seemed to include his senpais. Even though they were incredibly funny.


	5. Trial 4: Dragon Pair?

Chapter 4: Dragon Pair?

The regulars were running again for their lives. Why? The reason was none other than Inui's Super Deluxe Penal-Tea drink. The regulars were on their 20th lap and the time limit was two minutes per lap because the lake borderline was enormous. Everyone was running even faster because of one person. That one person being the girl on the sidelines cheering them on to finish. "Ganbare! Minna!" The regulars couldn't help but try their best to impress the girl who happened to be their little baby's girlfriend. They ran around the lake for the final time and it ended up in a tie.

Inui continued to write in his notebook and said, "Ii data. The training will pay off soon enough. It is a shame to let the drink go to waste so why not-"

"-Drink it yourself!" the regulars interrupted while glaring at the data specialist.

Oishi said in between pants, "Inui, stop with the drink attacks already. We can't take it."

Rose walked up to the regulars and gave them each a bottle filled with green liquid. The regulars took it with hesitation except for Ryoma. He said in his head '_What is this stuff? It's green.'_

Rose responded by thinking back to him '_It's nothing bad I promise. It is just made from water, medicinal herbs and other supplements to help train the body.'_

'_How the heck did you just answer me?'_

_ 'Quite simple really. As soon as the contract was made, we can talk to one another using telepathy. It's an easy way to chat without anyone knowing don't ya think.' _Rose had a smile on her face as she handed the other regulars their cups and got them, nearly forced them, to drink the green liquid.

The regulars expected the drink to taste like Inui's but what they didn't expect was the actual taste of the drink. The drink tasted like mint green ice cream and was refreshing for the regulars after their run. Inui even tried some and asked for the recipe. The regulars were surprised when they found out the ingredients being water, medicinal herbs, mint, and other sorts of healthy things.

The regulars were instantly refreshed and felt good enough to get training again even after their long run. They started having practice matches and the pair-offs were announced. The first match was Momo-Echizen, then Kaidoh-Kawamura, Oishi-Tezuka, and Fuji-Eiji. The four pairs played each other to their hearts' content without worrying about running laps. After the matches were done, Rose handed them another drink which was instead brown and they hesitantly drunk that one as well. This time the drink tasted like hot chocolate and they were ready for another practice round.

Before anyone could train any further, Tezuka asked Rose, "Do you play tennis as well, Ryu-san?"

Rose looked at him with an eyebrow raised and said, "1. Don't call me Ryu-san. I feel old when you say that when I'm only 12. Just call me Rose-chan ok?" Tezuka nodded before she spoke again saying, "Yes, I play tennis. I used to play matches against Ryo-kun when we were younger."

"Nya…does that mean you are good then? Rose-chan?" Kikumaru asked while glomping her.

"Saa…I wonder how good you are." Fuji said while having his chin held by his hand in amusement.

"I don't remember if I was any good. We haven't played for five years neh Ryo-kun?" Rose looked over at Ryoma with a smile on her face.

Ryoma understood what she was trying to do and said, "Che, we haven't played for over five years. I bet though that you have been training to try to beat me."

"Mou! You know that I can't beat you. When we were younger I couldn't win three games against you." Rose pouted slightly when she said this and the regulars thought '_Kawaii.'_

"Nya…Rose-chan? Can you play doubles?" Kikumaru asked after letting go of Rose.

"I can somewhat play doubles," replied Rose and she started walking over to Ryoma asking, "Will you be my doubles partner Ryo-kun?"

The regulars gasped as she asked this. They all thought wouldn't she know how bad he is at doubles. They were left to think about the two and remembered Ryoma's doubles match.

Rose and Ryoma were having their own conversation, which no one could hear, starting with Ryoma thinking '_What are you thinking Rose? I can't play doubles.'_

_ 'No problem. I have already learned about your play-style and you should know mine in three…two…one. My play style will compliment yours by me being acrobatic like Kikumaru-senpai.'_

_ 'You can do some tricks even he can't do. Impressive.' _Ryoma replied with a smirk. He then said out loud, "Sure. I'll play doubles with you."

The regulars just stared at Ryoma thinking '_This isn't going to turn out well.'_ Fuji cleared his throat by coughing to get everyone's attention before saying, "Saa…who should they face then."

Kikumaru immediately jumped up and yelled, "I wanna face Ochibi-chan and Rose-chan. Onegai Tezuka-buchou!" Kikumaru looked at his captain with a gleam of hope in his eyes.

Tezuka sighed and finally after a few minutes he said, "So it will be the Golden Pair versus…" He waited for the 'couple' to say their team name.

Ryoma didn't know what to call themselves before Rose stated out, "Dragon Pair."

"Saa…Dragon Pair. Sounds interesting." Fuji said while opening his eyes to prove it.

The team cringed as soon as he opened his eyes. Rose and Ryoma went to the right side while Oishi and Kikumaru went to the left.

Rose said, "Which?"

"Smooth." Eiji answered.

She let the racket spin and it landed on smooth. "You serve first." She then said to Ryoma '_You know the plan right?'_

_ 'Che, yeah I know the plan.'_

_ 'Good because I don't like losing. The pride of a dragon is much too great for one to lose it.'_

_ 'Arrogant much?'_

_ 'Cocky much?'_

The game started soon enough with the two teams hitting the ball back and forth over the net. Ryoma was first using his right hand and was in the back while Rose was in the front. She showed just how much of an acrobatic she could be by jumping into the air as high as she could to return Oishi's Moon Volley and smashed it down to the ground with a loud 'BOOM!' The others were astounded and when she landed on the ground she said, "Rairyu, a.k.a. Thunder Dragon."

Kikumaru was jumping around like crazy looking at the scorched mark from where the ball hit the court yelling, "Sugoi! Rose-chan sugoi!"

The game continued in the same manner with Rose showing off more and more moves. Fuji started to notice how every one of her signature moves included the word Ryu or Dragon. He thought '_Saa_…s_he sure is a dragon fanatic. Or is it something more? There have been no further kidnappings since Echizen was kidnapped. Saa…what could this mean?'_

The game ended after an hour had passed and the Dragon Pair won 7-6. The regulars were surprised that Ryoma could play doubles, Rose was a good tennis player and that the golden pair lost.

With that game finished Rose gave Ryoma another drink which was instead purple and when he drank it he ended up thinking that it tasted like his favorite Grape Ponta. He smiled at her and asked her '_How did you know that I liked Grape Ponta?'_

_ "I told you, anything crucial I need to know about my master, I will learn it even if it is about your likes and dislikes.' _Rose smiled at him thoughtfully and then turned to go to the team's captain saying, "Should we go back now. It is starting to get dark."

The regulars looked up at the sky and indeed saw that the sky was turning into a deep shade of purple and about to go black. Oishi turned to see Rose heading back towards the lake and asked, "Rose-chan, do you have anywhere to stay?"

Rose turned to look at him with a confused look on her face before saying, "No. I have just been sleeping close to the lake."

As soon as she answered Oishi started rambling on about how she shouldn't be sleeping outside or near a lake where the dragon could take her, '_Not anymore,_' Rose and Ryoma thought at the same time. He would have kept on rambling if Rose had not said, "If you are so worried, then should I stay with you at your cabin then?"

The regulars instantly agreed to have her stay at their cabin. She asked for a room close to Ryoma's and she got the last room that was to the left of his. She told Ryoma '_Your teammates are really interesting.'_

_ 'Che, more like weird except for Tezuka-buchou and Fuji-senpai. They seem to be the only normal ones in the group.'_

_ 'Says the cocky freshman of Seigaku.'_

_ 'Che, lets go before we get stuck out here.'_

_ 'Agreed.'_ With that the two who were seemingly a couple decided to hold hands to their way back to the cabin to make it seem all the more real that they were a couple.


	6. Trial 5: Poison?

Chapter 5: Poison?

"Eh! Today we will be training in the forest!" the regulars yelled at their captain.

Tezuka just looked at them with a stern face as if he was going to threaten them with more laps around the lake. The regulars were already tired and it was the fourth day of the week they were staying over at the lake. "Yudan sezu ni ikou. We were sent to train and we are going to train."

"Demo! Why can't we go into the light part of the forest and not the creepy part!" Kikumaru complained. Oishi was trying his best to calm his doubles' partner down before he had to run laps.

"I have to agree with Kikumaru-senpai," a voice said from behind the group. The regulars turned around to see Rose heading up to them apparently sleeping later that the rest of the regulars did. "The forest is fine when there is sun shining through. But…" Rose looked down toward the ground with a solemn face.

"But what Rose-chan?" Momo said with a confused face.

Rose looked back up and said, "But in the dark part of the forest where there is almost no light, there are snakes and other animals. The vines grow around like crazy with thorns on every inch of the vine. The trees seem like they come alive and look like they plan to get you and other things."

The regulars heard the warnings from Rose and all of them gulped in fear. Tezuka still suggested that they train in the forest and with that Rose pulled Ryoma away to talk to him. Tezuka said to warm up and stretch while Rose talked with Ryoma.

Rose took Ryoma to the side of the lake close to the cave where they first met. Ryoma asked, "What is it Rose?"

"Be careful in there alright Ryoma." Rose said with a stern face and a glare towards Ryoma.

"What are you talking about?" Ryoma raised an eyebrow at Rose's statement and about the fact that she used his full name.

"When I said there were snakes, I meant they were poisonous snakes."

"What?" Ryoma yelled out. "What happens if anyone gets bitten by them?"

"They will only have 24 hours to find the antidote. The preservers used to have plenty of antidote, but the last of it was used up a month ago. The ingredient for the antidote was a medicinal herb at the bottom of this lake-"

"-so we can get it then no problem."

"Let me finish before you interrupt. The problem is getting the plant because for the first few feet in the lake, the water will be knee-deep, the next ten feet you go down the water will go up to waist-deep and then be over your head. After it reaches above your head there is a steep drop in land and the bottom of the lake is 20 feet deep. The plant resides at the sides of the steep wall, but the humans do not have any equipment to get the herb. Because of this, no one has gone into the forest so they won't risk getting poisoned."

Ryoma's face paled. He had to do something just in case anyone got bitten, or they would surely be in trouble.

Rose sensed Ryoma's fear and quickly said, "I can help though."

Ryoma looked at her and said, "How?"

"I am a dragon remember. My most powerful elements are water, air, earth, and fire. It will allow me to breathe underwater for an eternity. But the thing is, I will have to be in my human form so no one will get suspicious which means I can only grab one herb at a time. I will try to get as much as I can before you come back because I have a feeling that some people in your group will get poisoned from the snakes." With that Rose went over to the water and starting to dive toward the bottom of the lake to get the plants. '_You better get going Ryoma. The others are waiting for you so that they can practice. Be sure to warn them to be extremely careful of the animals in the dark portion of the forest.'_

_'Thank you Rose.'_

_'No problem, now you better get going. I will try to gather as many herbs as I can.' _Rose suddenly popped up out of the water carrying a peculiar looking plant in her hands. The plant had a tulip shape and its stem was that of cat's tail. Rose threw the plant onto the dirt surrounding the sand shores and dived in once again for another plant.

Ryoma went back to practice and find the regulars raring to train. Ryoma told them, "Be careful minna."

With that said, the regulars looked at him and then went to train in the forest.

* * *

Later the regulars were running for their lives. Why? Because three people, Kikumaru, Kaidoh, and Momo were bitten by the poisonous snakes and didn't know the cure. They ran to the workers office and asked for anything to help them. Unfortunately they were told that they ran out of antidote for the poison and the herb that could help was at the bottom of the 20 foot deep lake. The regulars ran out towards the lake hoping that they could get the herbs in time. What they didn't expect was what they saw in the lake.

They saw Rose come out of the water minute after minute carrying a strange looking plant out of the water and then diving back in for another. Once Rose came out she counted all the plants and counted that she had gathered around 50 herbs. She walked out of the water and collapsed down onto the dirt next to the pile of herbs panting and soaked in water.

The regulars walked up to her asking whether she was alright. The only thing to show she replied was pointing at the herbs saying the word, "cure" very silently. The regulars understood what she meant but didn't know what to do with the herbs.

Rose said to Ryoma, '_Do the same thing you did with my arm except make it into a liquid drink for them.'_

Ryoma looked at her and decided to do as she said. He walked around looking for two stones perfect for grinding the herbs into a powder. He ordered the healthy regulars to get some cups for the entire team including Rose. While they went to do that, he laid the regulars onto the sandy shores and started to grind 20 herbs into a fine powder. He saved the rest for the workers to use just in case.

By the time the regulars came back with the cups Ryoma was already walking over with a towel full of green powder and then poured some of the powder into each of the ten cups they brought. Oishi was smart enough to bring clean water with them and poured it into the cups. Ryoma slowly shook each of the cups to dissolve the powder and as soon as the powder was fully dissolved he got everyone to drink it. The last one to drink it was Rose and after a few minutes, the ones bitten by the snakes were better than ever. The only one still exhausted was Rose, and the regulars knew by the way she was trying to catch her breath and was still soaking wet. Ryoma decided that they should bring her back to the cabin and get her changed into more dry clothes.

By the time Rose woke it was already five in the evening, and she woke up to see a ceiling above her head and someone sitting by her side. She realized she was on her bed back in her room and looked up to see Ryoma dozing off in a chair trying to keep awake. She saw the other regulars sleeping from all the training they did. Rose got up slowly to not wake them up and went to the kitchen to cook something to eat. She made ginger soup and added honey and other healthy ingredients. She poured the soup into ten bowls and then added other ingredients to appeal to each person's favorite type of food.

When Rose was all finished, she set up the bowls at different places on the dining table and set up labels so that people would know where to go. She slowly walked up to her room where the others were and saw them finally waking up and nearly panicking that she was gone. She walked into the room and everyone yelled, "Rose-chan! Daijoubu?"

"Hai! Daijoubu neh!" Rose said with a cheerful smile.

The regulars all smiled and went to the dining room to get something to eat. They saw the ten bowls sitting on the table with labels on each one saying whose was whose. The all dug in happily having a cooked meal instead of the ones from the café. They were surprised at the different tastes of the soups and asked who cooked it when Rose immediately replied, "I did. I have a lot of cooking experience."

The others smiled and decided to let her train with them the next three days that they were staying.

Over the next three days the routine was the same. Wake up, have breakfast, go warm up, run around the lake away from Inui's death-I mean _healthy_ drinks, have lunch, have practice matches until dinner, and then after dinner, wash up and go to bed.


	7. Trial 6: First Day Back, First Day

Chapter 6: First Day Back, First Day Attacked

Today was the day that the regulars would be coming home from their training and everyone at the school was excited. Each of the tennis regulars' fan-clubs had a 'welcome back' party waiting for them at the tennis courts. What they didn't expect was who was walking with them having her arms linked through Ryoma's.

The fan-girls stood shocked at the girl happily chatting with Ryoma and the rest of the regulars. They instantly felt jealous at the girl and sent her death glares which if looks could kill would have killed her 100 times over.

Rose instantly flinched as she felt somebody or everybody was staring at her. She started to look down with a little bit of fear and embarrassment at being stared at. As soon as the regulars saw this, they started glaring at the girls and to everyone's shock so did Ryoma with a glare that no one's could match.

The girls that used to be staring at Rose started asking questions left and right. It took a full half hour to actually fully introduce her to everyone, and everyone was shocked, especially Ryoma's fan-club, when they found out the girl was Ryoma's girlfriend.

Rose was looking around the tennis courts until she suddenly felt something on the roof of the tallest building. She closed her eyes and used her ability of tracking to find out who or what it was spying on the group. Rose suddenly realized with fright that the person was one of the few descendants of the dragon hunters from when she was a young dragon. She opened her eyes wide looking up at the roof and quickly pushed Ryoma off to the side.

Everyone was surprised when Rose pushed Ryoma away from her thinking 'What is that girl doing to Ryoma-sama!' That is, until they saw something hit the ground right in front of the girl. They all shrieked in fear and the men there backed away in shock. Ryoma had fallen to the ground and stared at the weapon. It was a knife of the sharpest of metal and saw that if Rose didn't push him out of the way, he would have been killed. He looked up to see Rose in pain from something and clenching her hand tightly.

Rose had one of her eyes close tightly from the pain she felt in her hand. She had pushed Ryoma out of the way in time for him to avoid getting killed, but she did not get away in time for the knife to avoid cutting a centimeter deep into her hand.

Ryoma ran over to Rose and uncovered her hand. What he saw made everyone gasp and widen their eyes even more in shock. Rose had a centimeter deep wound on her hand from the knife, and they saw the pain she felt in her open eye. They immediately went to get her to the nurse despite being jealous towards her at first. Why wouldn't Ryoma's fan-girls help her after she just saved his life from ending?

Rose got to the nurse safely after she practically begged for Ryoma to come with her. She kept talking to Ryoma telepathically while they were in the infirmary. Rose kept asking '_Daijoubu Ryo-kun?'_

_ 'Che, I'm fine. It's you I'm worried about. Why did you risk killing yourself when I was in danger?'_

_ 'Because you are my master remember?'_

_ 'So?'_

Rose sighed at his reply and said _'Because you are my master, my life is connected to yours somewhat.'_

_ 'Somewhat?'_

_ 'I mean, that if you die, then so will I. If I die, you will live while I take about five minutes to resurrect myself with the contract. In that meantime, you have to keep alive and avoid dying to make sure that I can come back to protect you.'_

_ 'Souka. Well then. I should train a bit with my powers.'_

_ 'Eh! Nani!'_

_ 'Look you are supposedly my girlfriend now. I have to protect you. And I don't want to rely on a dragon the entire time.'_

_ 'Mataku…so like you. Alright I will train you. When shall we start?'_

_ 'How about the weekends? I'm usually free because the practices are in the morning and afternoon so we have plenty of time to practice.'_

_ 'Deal then. I will train you when we have free time then.'_

_ 'Deal.'_

The nurse had come back in to check in on Rose's wound. She had bandaged the wound up while the two were silently chatting and left to get more disinfectant. She removed the bandages and widened her eyes in shock. The scar that was left over from the wound was completely healed. She was certain that it would heal in a few weeks, but this was just a few minutes. She was about to yell when Rose suddenly said, "My body is weird. I heal extremely quickly for some odd reason." She scratched the back of her hand sheepishly while telling Ryoma '_This is just because of my healing ability. It allows my wounds to heal quicker than anything else which allows me to fight for a long period of time.'_

_ 'Souka. Good to know.'_ Ryoma took Rose's uninjured hand and led her back to practice.

Once the two returned to the courts they were met with a loud round of shrieks. They both flinched at the sudden outburst and glared at the crowd. The crowd immediately stopped and backed out making a somewhat clear path to the regulars who were patiently waiting for them. While the two walked past, the crowd looked shocked and amazed that Rose's hand no longer had a big scar from the knife. They were scared when Rose suddenly walked over to the knife and pulled it out saying, "I'll take some observations on this and see who it belongs to. I will not have anyone hurting my boyfriend."

The girls immediately relaxed at the thought that she would be protecting their Ryoma-sama.

Rose and Ryoma went to Tezuka to find out what the shrieking was about when they first arrived back after a trip to the nurse.

Tezuka replied, "Because I decided to put Rose in as a regular."

The two widened their eyes. Ryoma said, "But I thought that girls…"

"…weren't allowed to play with the boys," Rose finished.

Everyone thought, 'They are in synch.'

Tezuka replied, "There is an old rule that allowed intergender tournaments, but it didn't go well. They were about to remove it until Ryuuzaki-sensei called them about Rose and they instantly agreed. We have permission from the Tennis Association and the principal to let Rose play on the team.

Rose started, "But what are we going to do…"

"…about having ten regulars on the team now," Ryoma finished.

Tezuka just replied, "Yudan sezu ni ikou. We will figure something out. We will be placing you two in doubles occasionally however."

Everyone just yelled, "Eh!" as soon as Tezuka had just finished. He told all the girls to get out of the courts for practice and told everyone besides the regulars to run ten laps. Thankfully it wasn't 20 because the group had thrown them all a 'welcome back' party.

Strange things started happening to both Rose and Ryoma. Stray balls that were on the ground suddenly popped up and nearly hit them both on the head. When they were by the fountains, tree branches broke off and were thrown at them. Rose was constantly on alert and told Ryoma when to move to avoid getting hurt making it look like a coincidence to the others. During practice matches, the two could have sworn they saw something staring at them from the bushes.

The regulars thought that they were just coincidences and accidents but the two dragon partners knew otherwise. Tezuka decided to make the Dragon Pair practice at home to debut their doubles' pairing at the tournament the next week against Shikon Junior High.

Things just couldn't get any weirder for the dragon pair.


	8. Trial 7: Shikon Tournament

Chapter 7: Shikon Tournament

It was finally the day of the tournament against Shikon Junior High. The regulars were all excited except for two. Rose and Ryoma were staring at each other with a concerned face. The regulars went to register for the competition and went to their court. Rose and Ryoma kept chatting the entire walk.

'_Are you sure about today?' _Ryoma asked silently.

'_Yes I am sure Ryo-kun. Otherwise I wouldn't have this sick feeling in my stomach that _they_ are coming.' _Rose said solemnly.

'_Well. We have worked hard enough on our powers so we should be fine.' _Ryoma said trying to cheer the girl up. Key word was 'trying.'

Rose smiled a fake smile toward the team who looked back at them thoughtfully. Ryoma knew it was fake, but the others did not. "Ryo-kun!"

"Nani?" Ryoma looked at Rose knowing she was just trying to show to the team that she was fine.

"We gonna win?" Rose said out loud for the rest of the team to hear.

Ryoma smiled and said, "Oh course. When we are together no one can beat us." Ryoma winked at Rose who blushed.

The two continued to prepare for their match considering they were the first ones up.

The ref called, "Seigaku's Echizen-Ryu pair vs Shikon's Spade-Haru pair. Please come onto the courts."

The two pairs went onto the courts and everyone gasped that a girl walked along with Ryoma to the court.

Spade looked at the girl and said, "Is this a joke? Who are you? Where is this Ryu person?"

Ryoma and Rose looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Rose decided to say to Haru, "Watashi Ryu Rose desu. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu. (I'm Ryu Rose. It is nice to meet you.)" Rose held out her hand to Haru who reluctantly took it and shook it.

"What is going on here? A girl is not supposed to play in a men's tournament," Spade whined.

The ref looked at him before saying, "There is a rule that allows inter-gender tournaments. It's just that no girl has felt confident enough to play therefore this is the first time a girl has yet to play in a men's tournament."

Spade looked in shock at Rose who smiled smugly in reply. "Don't think I will go easy on you just because you are a girl kid."

"I wouldn't have it any other way." Rose replied with a sly look in her eyes. '_Let's crush 'em Ryoma.'_

_ 'Will do.'_ Ryoma replied.

The game started with Shikon's serve. Their serve was fast but not fast enough for Ryoma, who was in the back, to return in with a return ace. The Shikon team was surprised that they could return a serve so quickly that they wouldn't see able to see it. The first game was won by Rose and Ryoma just by return aces.

Now it was Seigaku's turn to serve and Rose quickly got into position. She held the racket tightly in her right hand with the ball in her left. She threw the ball up high and raised her leg at the same time. By the time the ball reached its peak, Rose's legs looked like she was doing a split. She suddenly threw her leg down in the direction of her arm and hit the ball toward the court. The ball went over the net and landed onto the court. Instead of bouncing however the ball rotated in circles growing smaller and smaller until it reached the 'center' and flew straight up. Spade and Haru were too surprised to hit it back when it landed again at the baseline.

The crowd started whispering about the serve and all they got was Rose saying, "Umiryu (Sea Dragon)." She served again but instead had her right leg a foot behind her left. When she served, she threw the ball into the air, raised her right leg to bend at the knee and had her back arched. As soon as she hit the ball over the net the ball touched into the serving area and then bounced horizontally to the other side and bounced out. She then said, "Nijiryu (Rainbow Dragon)."

Rose then served normal serves after that to let the opposing team try to get back some dignity. Spade and Haru couldn't return the balls normally so they decided to show that they were the 'Power Pair' everyone dubbed them to be. They hit a powerful shot at Ryoma who knew he couldn't hit it back without hurting himself. He knew he had to dodge it but it was coming too fast for him to move.

Before the ball made impact with Ryoma, Rose jumped in front of him with her racket in her right hand and her left right behind the racket. She caught the ball and then suddenly forced it back to make it go unbelievably fast. The crowd stared in shock while Ryoma turned quickly over to Rose and led her to the bench seat.

"Daijoubu? Ro-chan?" Ryoma asked with worry lacing his every word.

"Daijoubu Ryo-kun! See?" Rose said and showed her hand to the team. She started flexing it, twirling it, and even threw her racket in the air and caught it. The team sighed in relief that the girl was alright and continued the match. She then started showing more of her tennis moves. Every time the team smashed a ball she would go running toward it. Sometimes she would put the racket under the ball facing her teammate and then pull her hand backwards while pushing the racket up to force the ball back over the net. The ball dropped to the ground and rolled right to the edge of the net and she called it the "Tondeiruryu (Flying Dragon)." She had another move to return special shots by instead facing the opponent and pulling her racket back to make the ball go away from the net which she called the "Hanaryu (Flower Dragon)." She also used her 'Rairyu (Thunder Dragon)' smash which caused everyone to cover their ears because of the loud 'BOOM' from the ball when it smashed into the court.

The game ended in with Ryoma and Rose's win 6-0. The other games went quicker than Ryoma's and Rose's. Kikumaru and Oishi were paired against the 'Speed Pair' formed from two men named Len and Girat and won with a score of 6-0. Fuji was faced against Caram and won the game as well. (A/N: Sorry. I only wanted to focus on the Dragon Pair's match.)


	9. Trial 8: DH Introduced

Chapter 8: DH Introduced

The two teams made it to the net and shook each other's hands. Little did they know they were watched. The two teams left and the only two left were Rose and Ryoma who were alert and ready for anything. The two teams looked at them in concern and were about to ask them to hurry up when they were interrupted when the 'Dragon Pair' jumped in opposite directions as knives came raining down from the trees. The two teams made a beeline for the sides of the court to remain safe while Ryoma and Rose hid along their teammates.

Suddenly ten people came out of the trees and jumped to the middle of the court. They looked at all the people cowering at the sides of the court and said unanimously "Pathetic. You should know who we are at least before we exterminate you."

They all came up in couples or that's what it seemed like.

Two people came up covered in green armor and introduced themselves. "I am Meiling and he is Gniliem. We specialize in bows and arrows."

Two people in silver armor came up and said, "I am Shao and she is Liniel. We specialize in swords.

People in black armor came up and said, "Yoroshiku. I am Betaes and she is Sevink. We specialize in knives whether it is throwing or just plain slicing."

"Yoroshiku! I'm Tiaw and he's my partner Aloc. We specialize in any weapon really," said the female from two people wearing camouflaged armor.

The last two wore purple armor and introduced themselves as, "Nator. She's Anosiop. We work with poisons."

"Why are you telling this to all of us?" yelled the regulars at the court.

"Because we know you have the dragon and its master here. Now where are they?" yelled the ten armored group of teenagers.

"Dragon? What dragon?" the regulars questioned.

"Hey!" a voice yelled to the group. Everyone turned to look at Rose who seemed to be standing in front of a bag right next to Ryoma. "Why are you looking for a dragon? They don't exist and if they did why do you want it?"

"Easy. We want to exterminate it for its skin," replied Nator.

Tiaw added, "Yeah! Yeah, dragon skin is good for armor and good to make a profit."

Ryoma and Rose gulped at this. Rose asked hesitantly, "Why do you want to kill a dragon then?"

"Another easy question. They may be good for armor and profit but there is another reason," replied Meiling.

Gniliem added on, "We have a belief about dragons. They are mean, selfish, dangerous, violent, malicious, and most of all they are evil because they do not care about the humans' well-being. We are the last remaining Dragon Hunters known as DH. We are searching for the last dragon from a lake. It seems as if the beast has found a master."

Rose flinched at every insult the hunter, unknowingly, threw her way. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see her 'boyfriend' looking at her with a sincere face.

Ryoma put his hand on top of Rose's shoulder and said '_Don't worry about what they said. To me you are none of those things. You are just perfect ok. Don't listen to them. Just listen to your heart and protect what is dear to you.'_

Rose nodded her head in agreement and to say thanks. She then yelled, "Are you sure the last dragon is like that. The last dragon may be different."

"There is no way any dragon is different. The dragons were once held sacred until they attacked us and tried to destroy us. In order to prevent being destroyed, we had to destroy the very creatures we held dear to save ourselves," Sevink replied.

"Are you sure that no dragon is different?"

"We are positive."

"I see. Then we might have to protect the last dragon at all costs shall we?"

"Hmm? Seems you know where the last dragon is. If you tell us, we will let you survive," the ten said as one while pulling out their weapons.

"We aren't in the mood to negotiate with killers like you," Ryoma replied.

The regulars were thinking _'What is going on? Dragons? Hunters? What does Echizen and Rose-chan have to do with this?'_

"Let's go Ryoma," Rose said while pulling out a whip from a hidden compartment in the bag behind her.

"Hai," Ryoma replied while pulling out a sword with jewels implanted into the steel blade and the hilt was made to represent a snowflake.

The regulars widened their eyes even more, if possible, and thought _'Ok what the heck is going on now?'_

"Hmm? The two of you versus the ten of us. Who will win neh?" the females of the group mocked.

The males replied, "Oh course we will win. They are outnumbered and when we beat them, we will get our dragon."

While the ten teens were gloating, Rose and Ryoma were already sneaking around to opposite sides of the group and attacked them once the group finished talking. Ryoma took out the poison users with one slash to the back. He used enough strength to knock them unconscious for a few hours but not enough to kill them. Rose had taken out the archers with a flick of her whip and knocked them down to the ground by whipping against their ankles and dragging them. In one move they had already taken care of four of the ten teens of the group. The others were smart enough to scatter around the pair. Rose quickly put a sleep spell on the four unconscious to prevent them from interfering any further.

The six teens left stared at the two and were amazed by how well they worked together and how well they fought. They got out their own swords, knives, and spears.

Rose took care of the females while Ryoma fought the males off. Rose was able to gracefully dodge most of the females' attacks no matter how fast they were. Rose started to secretly use her ability to control air to make her movements smoother and faster. Rose used her whip to sometimes wrap around the girls' wrists and swing them towards another girl to make them crash into each other before they recovered. By the time the three girls, Liniel, Sevink, and Tiaw were frustrated at the girl and decided to charge at her at once, they already had many lacerations and wounds on their wrists and ankles from getting dragged across the field. Rose quickly jumped out of the way and the three collided into each other before they quickly got back onto their feet for another quick round. Rose knew that she couldn't bother with these girls for long. She knew that her master would be having a little trouble, mainly because this was his first official fight with an enemy.

Ryoma was busy fighting Shao, Betaes, and Aloc, the remaining males of the group. He was using his sword to block most of the attacks and swing at them when they had left an opening from being blocked. He would usually swing at them from the left diagonally or from the right diagonally to lessen the chance of having an opening for the enemy to use. Betaes decided to attack him from afar and ran around Ryoma throwing knives along the way, Ryoma jumped up to get out of the way but was met with a trap set up by Shao and Aloc who jumped up to swing their sword and spear, respectively, down at him from both sides. Ryoma had his arms over his head to brace himself for the impact.

It never came.

When Ryoma opened his eyes, he found Rose in front of him having his sword in one hand blocking Shao and her whip in the other blocking Aloc from hurting him. He was shocked to say the least and quickly blocked Rose from getting hurt from Betaes who was throwing knives their way. As soon as they reached the ground, Rose pushed the two boys away from her and used her whip to knock Betaes off his feet. She grabbed Ryoma's hand, put his sword in the other and ran to the other side of the court yelling at him. '_Baka! What were you thinking? You should always check your surroundings. Who knows what could have happened if I didn't finish off those girly brats a few minutes ago. They are all probably asleep or paralyzed by now.'_

_ 'Gomen Ro-chan. Daijoubu!'_ Ryoma yelled as he saw blood on the girl's wrist.

'_Daijoubu Ryo-kun. It's just a scratch.'_ Rose said with a sincere tone. She then whispered, "Think we should reveal it then? Ryo-kun?"

"It would be easier to understand for the others if they knew what they were running from," Ryoma whispered back.


	10. Trial 9: Dragon Revealed

Chapter 9: Dragon Revealed

Rose nodded her head in reply and looked at the remaining three males of the group. She then said, with a death glare towards the three, "You are going to wish you never tried to hurt my master."

Everyone in the courts looked shocked. The word 'Master' going through their heads. What happened next surprised them even more.

Rose started muttering words that sounded like, "By the contract formed between Dragon and Master, I hereby release thine divine powers granted for protection. Release the elements from their dormant states, release thine powers from thine confines, release the power formed from the bond between dragon and partner." With that Ryoma and Rose started to glow a pure white. After the blinding light passed two figured emerged. The first one was obviously Ryoma but he had on pure white clothing. He wore a white, sleeveless top and a pair of white pants. He still wore his white tennis shoes but his cap was gone. His hair started to glow showing off the emerald tints in his hair and dropped to his shoulder. His sword now shined a bright baby blue and had frost coming off of it.

The other figure was hard to imagine being there. There was a dragon standing behind Ryoma. The dragon was serpent-like and it was silver. The wings were big enough to cover the court and were translucent. The sharp claws and teeth looked ready to tear anything and everything apart and looked strong enough to break stone. The dragon still had a golden star on its forehead, golden eyes, and a sun and moon on its left and right wing respectively. The dragon was skinny and was as long as the biggest side of the fence surrounding the tennis court. The eyes glared at the three dragon hunters and roared out to frighten them.

The three stared at the dragon and Betaes broke up the silence by saying, "So you were the dragon the whole time. And that boy is your master huh? Hey kid!"

Ryoma looked at him with a stern face and said, "What?"

"If you don't want to die, then leave the dragon for us to kill!" yelled Shao.

"There is no way you are hurting Rose!" Ryoma yelled back.

The regulars widened their eyes even more, if that was even possible now, and thought '_Rose?_ _There is no way that dragon can be Rose. But she disappeared…_'

The dragon roared once more and then started to talk, "You are in no way endangering my master. I may be a dragon, but I am nothing like the dragons in your beliefs. If you try hurting my master, you will have to kill me first!"

With the statement said, the dragon blew a flame around Ryoma. The regulars yelled out in surprise and fury that the dragon would dare hurt their 'Ochibi.' What they saw immediately calmed them down. The fires closed in around Ryoma and took on shapes. The fire formed a circle around Ryoma and then split off to form claws, wings, and a tail. As the shapes were formed they flew to Ryoma and went to his hands and back. The flames disappeared and in its place were pure white wings, transparent claws, and a serpent-like tail. The two said simultaneously, "Dragon armor." The two's eyes started to glow a deeper shade of gold and the tennis regulars knew that they were synchronized with each other.

The dragon lowered its head next to Ryoma while Ryoma pointed his sword at the three DH members having the sword on top of the dragon's head. The dragon opened her mouth and a blue orb of energy formed. Ryoma's sword also had a blue orb of energy coming from one of the implanted jewels closest to the blade point. The two both yelled, "Ice Dragon Cannon!" and the blue orbs fired at the three. The three DH members had enough sense to move out of the way. When the two blue beams hit the fence, the fence froze solid.

When the DH members were distracted the 'Dragon Pair' took their chance to use 'Dragon Rush' (A/N: My friend Pyro's idea) and they both charged at the three while having a red cloak surrounding them. (A/N: Imagine a Zen Headbutt from the pokemon anime.) Shao and Aloc saw that attack coming and dodged to the left and right respectively but Betaes was knocked off his feet and slammed into the frozen fence. In turn, the ice covered his arms and legs to make sure he wouldn't be able to interfere any longer in the fight.

While Aloc and Shao were in the air, the pair decided to use another move which they called 'Dive Bomb' (A/N: Friend's idea again). Ryoma jumped into the air while Rose, unknown to the regulars, blasted a ball of fire at his feet to give him extra speed and power. Ryoma blasted off towards the two dragon hunters and tried to kick at them.

The two dragon hunters saw it coming and swung their weapons at the boy which caused Ryoma to be blown towards the fence. Rose stretched out one of her wings and caught Ryoma. "Daijoubu Ryo-kun?"

"Aa," Ryoma replied as he shook his head to get rid of the dizziness in his head.

While the two were distracted the two remaining dragon hunters were charging at the pair and swung their weapons at the two.

Rose saw them coming and coiled her tail around Ryoma's body and used her wings to cover her own. When the sword and spear struck at the tail and wings, Rose yelled out in pain and Ryoma yelled, "Rose!"

The regulars finally put two and two together to conclude that the dragon was indeed Rose-chan. They yelled her name out as well and tried to get to her, but she yelled, "Stay away!"

"We cannot allow you to get hurt because of us!" Ryoma added. "Let's go Rose."

"Hai!" Rose shook the DH members off of her and started to heal her wounds with 'Dragon's Blessing.' When the two dragon hunters charged once again at Ryoma, she had finished healing and swung her tail at them to knock them to the other side of the field.

Aloc and Shao knew they were overpowered with only the two of them being able to fight and before they knew it, Rose had imprisoned them in a crystal casing.

Rose looked at them and said, "Let this prove to you that you don't mess with a dragon's master. Just so you know, I can and will protect everyone closest to my master's heart. His family, his friends, his senpai-tachi, everyone he finds important, I will protect them all. Not all dragons are evil, and if you want to kill them, make sure you get your facts right. Your people were the ones that attacked my species first you fools!" With that, Rose teleported the dragon hunters to the farthest hospital which was on the other side of Japan. She knew it would take them two months to recover and a week to get back to them.

With that done, Rose repaired the tennis courts to the way they looked before and transformed back into her human form. When she did, she instantly felt fatigue from the fighting and all the magic she had used and knew that Ryoma had felt the same when his fighting armor had disappeared to show once again his tennis uniform.

Ryoma and Rose both collapsed to the ground panting and still bleeding from some wounds. Rose's wounds were far worse than Ryoma's but insisted that he get patched up first. Ryoma knew that arguing with her was pointless, so they both staggered to their feet and started stumbling back to the bench. The regulars came out and helped them to patch up the wounds.

"When did this all start Echizen?" Momo asked concerned.

"Nya…when did it? When did it?" asked Kikumaru, who actually wasn't wearing a big grin on his face.

Rose knew Ryoma couldn't talk right now so she said, "This all started when I met him at the lake. I was the dragon at the lake that kidnapped all of you trying to find him. He is the last dragon master and I am the last dragon…" She continued to explain what happened when they first met and about the poison incident.

Everyone was shocked into silence by the end of the story before Fuji said, "So that's why there were no more kidnappings after Ryo-chan was kidnapped. He was the one you were searching for all along."

"Yes. I am sorry for lying and betraying you. The truth is I am not his actually girlfriend but his dragon servant. We had to keep it a secret to avoid putting you in danger. But now that you know, can you keep it as much of a secret as you can?" Rose asked with a pleading face.

The regulars immediately nodded their heads and all of them were excited to help Rose and Ryoma.

"Tell us about how you were able to fight so well." Kikumaru asked jumping around the two.

Rose replied, "Well…it all started the day we came back to Seigaku after the training at the lake…"


	11. Trial 10: Flashback Training

Chapter 10: Flashback Training

It was finally time to go home for all of the regulars. Rose and Ryoma walked home hand-in-hand once again making everyone stare at them weirdly. Rose and Ryoma just decided to ignore them and decide to talk to each other to pass the time until they got home.

_ 'Are you sure my family will be ok with this Rose?' _Ryoma asked Rose secretly.

Rose just sighed and then, with a caring look, replied '_It will be fine Ryoma. I already told you that their memories have been adjusted to include me in some memories. It didn't change anything major ok. For now let's just get home and yes your father won't bug me too much. Oh look we are here.'_

Ryoma looked up to see that they were already at his house. That was quicker than he had expected. He yelled out, "Tadaima!"

"What took you so long Seishounen? Finally found a girl after you lost contact with Rose?" A voice yelled from inside. "Hurry up and come in!"

"Baka Oyaji! I brought someone home!" Ryoma replied with an annoyed tone.

Suddenly the door flew open and Nanjirou popped out yelling, "Who? Who? Who did you bring home with you?" He looked next to Ryoma and saw the girl. Even though he had never actually met the girl, his memories were adjusted enough to make him yell, "Rose-chan! You're here at last! I was starting to worry about you when lil' seishounen lost contact with you." With that, Nanjirou led, more like dragged, Rose to the house and everyone came out saying things like 'It's nice to see you again Rose' and 'We've been so worried about you!' All Rose did was reply that she was sorry that she lost contact with them and that Ryoma found her by Lake Virtue.

Nanako hurried up to the guest room to prepare it for Rose and somehow knew how Rose liked it. The bed and desk were right next to each other right below the window right along the wall and the dresser was right next to the end of the bed. Everything was already white which Rose loved.

Rose sat on the edge of her bed and started to talk to Ryoma who had just finished his homework. She first said, '_Finished homework Ryo-kun?'_

Rose could tell that Ryoma was surprised when she heard a big bang on the wall. Her room was right next to Ryoma's, and she knew he was annoyed when he replied, '_What the heck! You didn't have to surprise me you know!'_

_ 'Well sorry, but I didn't want to walk in on you.'_

_ 'Oh. Sorry about yelling at you then. What is it that you wanted to talk about?'_

_ 'What I have to have a reason to just chat with you?'_

_ 'If it was my senpais then I would understand. But you on the other hand, always have a reason to talk to me whether it is good or bad.'_

_ 'Well this one is good. Do you want to start training now?'_

_ 'What! It is nearly close to ten at night. What are you thinking?'_

_ 'I am thinking that something is going to happen tomorrow, so I thought why not prepare you. It would look strange if I kept protecting you over and over again every time something happened.'_

_ 'Che, true. Fine, let's go. What will we say to my family though?'_

_ 'Don't worry. They are already asleep. We can train for as long as we want for today. Meet me downstairs.'_ With that Rose got up off her bed and went downstairs to meet with Ryoma. First she changed from her old clothing from when she was at the lake into something more comfortable for her. She changed into a cute, red tank top and a pair of pink surfer shorts. She decided to place on her white tennis shoes. She also tied her knee-length hair up into a ponytail with a blue hair-band that had a bird-shaped ornament attached.

Ryoma went downstairs already in his white t-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes and saw Rose coming down the steps. He had to say that she looked amazingly different. He snapped out of it and said, "Finally you're here. Ready to go?"

Rose rolled her eyes at him and said, "Yes I'm ready. Let's go before you get even more impatient then." Rose walked outside the house with Ryoma and they went to the river that separated the town finding it clear of anything and anyone. Rose set up a shield to cloak them so that no one could see them training.

Ryoma looked over at Rose saying, "What should we start with first?"

"Ever heard of darts Ryo-kun?" Rose said with a sly smile and her eyes closed.

_ 'This is not going to end well' _thought Ryoma. He replied, "Yeah, I've heard of them. Why?"

"Let's train with those then. What do you think darts should be used for in a battle?"

"Well…probably to either stun the enemy or poison them to stop them from attacking," Ryoma replied. As soon as he saw that he saw two darts appeared right in front of him. He blinked in surprise.

Rose saw the look on his face and thought, '_Well this is a good start for him.'_ "Those are going to be your first weapons for training. The stun dart and the poison dart. Practice throwing them at these targets." Rose waved her hand up and swung it around the training area. Ten little targets appeared and then started moving around. "Try to hit them while moving. If you cannot do that, then you will be in deep trouble."

Training kept going in the same manner. Rose kept introducing Ryoma to his own powers and kept him practicing against the targets for the next four hours. By the time they finished, it was already two in the morning and Ryoma was yawning like crazy.

Rose noticed that Ryoma was tired and immediately turned the targets into dust. She then said, "Go to sleep Ryoma. I'll get us back home. She then waved a hand over his head and his eyes started to droop. After a few seconds he fell asleep and started to fall to the ground. Rose caught him in time to catch him before he hit the ground and put him on her back to carry him home. Luckily she did not need any sleep but knew that Ryoma needed it for practice tomorrow morning, or today considering it was two in the morning. Rose carried Ryoma all the way home and laid him down on his bed. She then waved his hand over his head again to spread some healing powder onto him. The powder immediately started to work as she saw the dark bags under the boy's eyes begin to vanish. She went back to her own room and thought to herself. '_I know something is going to happen today. I just know it. I hope the training paid off in the end to help him when the time comes. Those pesky dragon hunters won't know what hit them when Ryoma masters every one of his powers. He has already gotten a good grasp but not enough to use it at full power. Let's hope he can soon or we are in big trouble.'_

The training was the same for the next few days. Ryoma was finally able to call out his six main elemental swords: Fire, Air, Electric, Poison, Ice, and Earth. The fire sword had a hilt that looked like a flame and the blade was spewing out fire. The air blade looked like a fencing blade. The electric looked like a scythe and was able to shoot out sparks. The poison looked like a vine with thorns. The earth blade looked like a bunch of seaweed that could extend and grow to however the user wanted and had a flower hilt. They worked on healing which Ryoma called 'Heaven's Symphony.' He also created a shield made from his most powerful element, fire. He even worked on petrifying his opponent to stone but found out that he could only use it once per month. Elemental Symphony (A/N: Friend's idea for the name) was a bit harder. The two found out that when Ryoma played a flute, he could control the wind better than ever while the violin controlled water, a guitar controlled fire, and symbols controlled the earth.

While Ryoma was busy perfecting his new skills, Rose worked on her own. She was able to work on her own healing when Ryoma overworked himself and called her spell 'Dragon's Blessing.' She first worked on the basics which were a water whip, which would always work when water was around, teleportation, purification, and her elemental powers with her main elements being: fire, air, earth, and water. She also had status orbs to paralyze burn, freeze, etc. her opponents. The harder spells for her was when she had to transform back into her dragon form. She was able to work on a move called 'Scale Barrage' where she would fly into the air and gather her energy into her scales to shoot out and strike and opponent. She practiced the move constantly with Ryoma. She also worked on summoning mini-dragons to help protect Ryoma and worked on transforming into a flying horse and a phoenix. She seemed to have a thing for flying mythical creatures. When she turned into a horse, her wings were still silver but her coat was now a shimmering pure white. Her phoenix form had feathers that had every color of the rainbow and her wings spread from one bank of the ten foot wide river to the other. The most dangerous one for her to use however was her move called 'Rave.' (A/N: Friend's idea for the name again) This move required her to focus her energy into a strong emotion her partner felt whether it was passion, sorrow, or even hatred. Then the energy would form in her mouth to form and orb and she could release the blast to go as far and be as powerful as she could make it. It would however cause her to pause for a minute to regain her strength which made in unreliable to use multiple times in battle.

They trained for the whole week perfecting their skills and making sure to create moves that combined both of their abilities. By the end of the week, they had mastered every single skill and perfected their moves perfectly.


	12. Trial 11: So Hard to Gain, Yet so Easy

Chapter 11: So Hard to Gain, Yet so Easy to Lose

Rose finally finished her story and shook Ryoma awake. Ryoma's wounds were all patched up thanks to Oishi and so were Rose's. Ryoma yawned quietly and made sure to hide it while Rose giggled at his actions.

The regulars were still in shock before Fuji broke the silence.

"So…the injuries and scratches weren't from gangs as you said, but instead training?" Fuji asked with his eyes opened.

The two knew that this was not going to end well and hesitantly replied, "Y-Yes Fuji-senpai."

The tensai looked down at the ground with the other regulars before another broke the silence.

"So you couldn't even trust us enough to tell us the truth nya?" Kikumaru asked sadly looking up at Rose and Ryoma with betrayal in his eyes.

Rose gulped and quickly said, "Let me explain. Ryoma wanted to tell you but knew that it was too dangerous. We knew you would be in danger, so we decided it would be best for only us to be in danger-"

"So you decided to lie to us!" Momo yelled in anger.

Rose flinched from the outburst and instantly took a step back on instinct. She looked down with a solemn look on her face. "Gomen. Honto gomen."

"'Sorry' can't make up for you lying to us when we trusted you," Fuji replied.

"Demo-" Ryoma yelled.

"No buts Echizen," Tezuka said, "We completely trusted you and you hide this behind our backs. What makes you think we would rather see you hurt? Yudan sezu ni ikou. You let your guard down and paid the price nearly with your life."

"Demo-"

"Ryoma!" Rose yelled.

Ryoma looked at Rose and saw a pained look in her eyes. "Nani Ro-chan?"

"Just stop it. Just stop it already. If they think we hurt them, let them. If they think they can't trust us again after today, let them." Rose said out loud and then said to Ryoma alone '_We need to be strong in order to survive. That is a dragon code. Show no emotion. With emotion shows weakness, weakness shows vulnerability, vulnerability leads to death. That was the dragon code and still is. Now please stop. We need to go and tend to our wounds even more and replenish our magic ability.'_

Ryoma nodded with a sad look in his eyes and took Rose's hand to head back home.

"Where are you going?" Momo yelled.

"Back home!" Rose replied over her shoulder. "If you can't trust us anymore, we won't be in your way then. We will still come to practice, but nothing more than that. Until you realize the reason we lied to you, we won't get near you unless completely necessary. You should still keep the secret about this unless you want your complete memory wiped and your families. We will still be a couple in school to act like nothing's wrong. But if you hurt Ryoma in any way by telling the secret I will personally come and make your lives a living hell," Rose finished with a death glare that not even Fuji's could match. "Come on Ryoma. I'll teleport us back home."

Ryoma nodded and with that, the two were gone in thin air and all that was left were the words that Rose had said to the regulars.

"What did we just do?" Oishi asked.

"I don't know, but I don't want to find out." Momo replied.

"The reason for their lies?" Kikumaru asked.

"We will see then during practice tomorrow. Then we can ask." Inui muttered while scribbling all he saw into a separate notebook. "Ii data."

The regulars sweat dropped at how he could be so calm.

"Saa…maybe we should just try to talk to them again later." Fuji said.

"Yeah, yeah let's do that. They are bound to forget about this whole mess by then." Kikumaru replied in hope.

Kaidoh just hissed in reply. "Or they won't. After we just yelled at them for protecting all of us, I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't want to talk to us until we figure it out ourselves."

"We will just have to wait and see. Yudan sezu ni ikou," Tezuka replied as stoic as ever.

* * *

Rose and Ryoma ended up back in Ryoma's bedroom. The family's memory was adjusted to make them think they had just gotten home by walking from the tournament. Rose laid Ryoma on the bed and sat on a chair beside him. She grabbed a container on his nightstand and grabbed some of the magic powder inside. She threw the powder into the air and used her ability to make it form a circular shape over Ryoma. The powder started to glow in the presence of magic and activated it magic replenishing abilities. After a matter of minutes Ryoma was completely fine and so was Rose.

"What are we going to do Rose? They don't trust us anymore," Ryoma said sadly with a hint of regret.

"Don't sound so regretful. You are making me feel as if I should have never met you." Rose said with a concerned face. "You know I only want what's best for you and I'm sure that without us revealing ourselves we wouldn't have survived. We need to survive Ryoma, to protect you, your family, and your friends. Until they realize that, they have no right to earn your trust. Trust me Ryoma. I want to help you."

"Why is it that trust is so hard to gain, yet so easy to lose?"

"That's the way it works and can't be changed. Come on. Let's get you washed up." Rose got Ryoma off the bed and gently pushed him into the bathroom handing him his clothes. "I will wait for you out here. That way you can have a few minutes to calm yourself down from today's fight."

"What about you?" Ryoma said through the closed door.

"I will be fine. I'll take a shower once you fall asleep. I want to make sure you won't be so fitful."

"Che, caring much?"

"What do you expect from your partner?" Rose said with a caring tone.

"Che, arigato Ro-chan."

"Betsuni. I'll wait out here."

"Take a shower while you wait in the other bathroom."

"As you wish it."

"Che, you are so annoying with that master talk."

"Gomen. I'm just used to it. I want to make sure you are ok. I'll come back after my shower." Rose left Ryoma alone to take her own shower. '_Don't worry about me reading your thoughts. I'll cut off the connection until we meet in your room later to give you some privacy.'_

_ 'Thanks.'_

_ 'Betsuni. Anything to help.'_

With that, the telepathic connection was cut off completely. Ryoma thought about what happened.

"What should I tell them? Should I trust them even though they don't trust me? Rose said I shouldn't trust anyone who doesn't trust me just in case but…I don't know anymore. Sometimes I wish that this dragon master job was a whole lot easier. I'll talk to Rose more later." Ryoma finished his shower and changed into his pajamas and waited in his room for Rose.

Rose came in minutes later dressed in a blue nightgown. She asked, "You ok Ryo-kun?"

"Aa. Completely fine," replied Ryoma as he turned to face out the window.

Rose could see the uncertainty in his eyes and his fear in his voice. She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck to comfort him.

Ryoma leaned into the hug on instinct and could feel Rose's soft skin despite her fighting today.

"What's wrong Ryo? You know you can tell me." Rose said closing her eyes and putting her head on top of his.

"Nothing's wrong Ro," replied Ryoma as he lifted one hand to touch her arms around his neck.

"You're a bad liar you know. I am your dragon. I know something's wrong." Rose said while pulling away from Ryoma to turn his face towards her with one hand while sitting down next to him on the bed. "Now tell me what's wrong Ryo." Rose had a pleading and caring look in her eyes which made Ryoma sigh in defeat.

"I don't know what to do about this. Sometimes I wish I hadn't met you…" Ryoma watched as Rose's eyes widened in shock and worry before continuing with, "…but I'm glad I did. I get to protect the people important to me." He watched as Rose's eyes sparkled again with happiness and relief. He could tell that she was worried about him and wanted her to know he was truly fine but couldn't. "What should we do about senpai-tachi?"

Rose's eyes went back to a sad state. She then looked over to Ryoma before pulling him into a hug to comfort him before saying, "If they cannot trust us, we might have to wipe their memory about the battle. But if we do, we might be making them lose more of their trust in us if they ever remember. I want them to trust you mostly because I am the one that betrayed them, not you. Don't worry. We will discuss this more later. For right now just sleep Ryo."

Ryoma closed his eyes slowly while Rose started rubbing soothing circles on his back. Soon enough he was asleep and Rose laid him on the bed and pulled the covers over him.

Rose took one look at him and smiled at his now serene face despite the discussion earlier. She took a liking to him and even more so when he defended her in the battle earlier. She whispered to his sleeping form, "Daisuki Ryoma. Honto daisuki." With that, she left the room thinking the same thing he did. Why was trust so hard to gain but so easy to lose in the end.


	13. Trial 12: Tensions Rise

Chapter 12: Tensions Rise

Everyone went to practice the next morning, and it was certainly…awkward. Rose and Ryoma were always together now more than ever, but the strange thing was…they were avoiding the other regulars. Sure they would say good morning and do the normal training, but any chance they could, they would avoid the regulars at all costs.

The members that had not gone to the tournament the day before were dumbfounded, wondering what was going on between the regulars. What was with the tension? What was going on? When will they be back to normal?

"Nya! The two keep avoiding us nya!" Kikumaru whines loudly to his partner. "I can't even get close to Ochibi without getting glared at by Rose-chan."

Oishi sighed trying to pry his partner off of him saying, "I don't know. Not even I can get close to them anymore. Not even Fuji can."

The regulars looked at Fuji who said, "I can't get close to her anymore. Last time I tried, she shoved this pink juice down my throat and knocked me unconscious. I didn't think she would ever be able to find anything I wouldn't be able to stomach," Fuji finished innocently with a bit of fear in his voice.

The regulars gulped and thought '_Kawaii!_'

"So what should we do nya?" Kikumaru asked silently.

"Saa…what should we do?" Fuji replied.

The regulars all looked towards the dubbed 'Dragon Pair.' They thought the same thing then. '_Maybe they will come to talk to us later if we keep quiet.'_

* * *

Rose and Ryoma were both practicing their tennis forms, or rather Rose was. Rose already knew that Ryoma had his form perfect considering he always played his father. She knew her form was off and asked Ryoma for help.

"Bend your knees a little more and try not to tense up so much Ro," Ryoma advised.

"Hai!" Rose followed his advice perfectly and tried to hit a new shot of hers. The shot was perfect and everyone that watched started clapping. She rubbed the back of her head sheepishly even though she knew with Ryoma's help it would work in the end. "Arigato Ryo."

"Betsuni Ro. Ro?" Ryoma asked while walking towards the water fountains.

"Nani Ryo?" Rose followed him and wanted to talk to him anyway.

"Create a shield for a camouflage for a bit."

"Of course." Rose raised her hands into the air and a bright orange shield appeared and the color on the outside matched their surroundings. "Now what is it you wanted to talk about Ryo?"

"They still haven't figured it out yet, have they?"

"I'm afraid not. But they need to realize that we needed to keep the secret for their own protection. Remember, any weakness those DH pricks find, they will use against us and that includes people that know our secret. They need to figure that out themselves. Until then we can't risk being near them until they figure it out."

"Mou! Why does this have to hurt so much?" Ryoma yelled while rubbing a spot on his shoulder.

"That wound still hurts?" Rose asked concern lacing her every word. "Let me see it. That wound from the battle yesterday was harsh."

"Not as harsh as your wounds. You've got scars on your back and legs from protecting yourself and me. You should be more concerned about yourself than me Ro."

"Hmm…no. I'm perfectly fine tending after you. After all you are a human and I'm a dragon. We heal more quickly than your kind."

"Che, have it your way." Ryoma said while shrugging part of his shirt off to reveal his shoulder. It had a purple bruise covering the entire shoulder joint.

"I'm surprised no one has noticed this yet." Rose said while gently rubbing a recovery lotion, made from her scales and the powder from her wings, into the shoulder wound.

"I'm glad no one has seen this yet. Do you know how they would react? They saw me fight yesterday and then find out I'm a dragon master. Now they figure out the next day I have a big freaking bruise on my whole entire shoulder joint. Ouch!" Ryoma yelled as Rose flicked his forehead.

"Be quiet and stopped complaining so much. They will understand after a while. Just give them time to try to understand. If luck is on our side, they will help us. If not, just hope that they figure it out before DH returns to hunt us again. Stop moving so much, the lotion won't soak in correctly if you move around from complaining. And don't complain so loudly either, this shield isn't completely sound-proof you know."

"Gomen. I'm just worried Ro."

"I know Ryo. All finished. Now take a look at the bruise." Rose put the lotion back into her shorts pocket and pulled out a mirror for Ryoma to see.

Ryoma widened his eyes and saw that the bruise practically disappeared. He asked, "What is that lotion anyway?"

Rose put away the mirror while answering, "It is a special healing lotion built from the healing abilities in a dragon's wing powder and in their scales. While you were asleep yesterday I transformed one of my arms and my wings to pluck off a few scales and powder for the lotion," Rose said. She read Ryoma's mind and quickly replied, "No it does not hurt that much, and yes it is the reason why I have bandages on my arms and back. Don't worry it'll heal in another hour or so."

"That's good."

"Come on. Let's get back to practice before they start to think we ran off." Rose started jogging off back to the courts.

"Right behind you," Ryoma said following true to his words. In a few seconds, he ran right behind her to the courts.

* * *

"Hey look it's Ochibi!" Kikumaru yelled as Ryoma and Rose jogged back to the courts.

"That's good. I thought they left already because they didn't want to be near us," Oishi replied being the mother hen he was.

"Nya! Don't say anything bad. You don't know what will happen!" Kikumaru yelled at his partner.

"Saa…look who's talking." Fuji replied. "With you yelling, they will know something is up. Look they are looking at us right now." Fuji pointed at the 'Dragon Pair' as they indeed were looking at the team before they turned their heads back to their training.

"Gomen," Kikumaru replied sadly.

* * *

"Why do you think they were staring at us Ro?" Ryoma asked as he turned back to perfecting Rose's form for another new shot of hers.

"Maybe because we stared at them when they yelled out?" Rose asked in reply.

"Possibly. Straighten your arms a bit more and you still need to loosen up. You are way too tense." Ryoma advised her.

"Oh course. You sure can be a total jerk when it comes to tennis." Rose retorted.

"Anything to make us the best. After all you did say a dragon's pride was too great to lose didn't you." Ryoma smirked at his last remark.

Rose's face turned red in anger and replied, "Using my words against me. Smart move." With that, her face turned back to normal.

"Just trying to cheer you up Ro. I know you feel as if this is your fault. It isn't. Trust me. I know what I'm talking about. Maybe we should speak to the others and just tell them. I'm sure they can understand," Ryoma said while his eyes turned from cocky and stubborn to his caring self which he showed few people.

"Maybe, just maybe. I'm sure they will definitely forgive you Ryo,' Rose said while starting to walk over to her teammates.

"What about you?" Ryoma asked while following.

"I will have to wait and see about what they think about me for lying to them." Rose said while looking toward the ground.

Little did Rose know, that what happened next would forever bring back the trust between her, Ryoma, and the other regulars.


	14. Trial 13: Curse?

Chapter 13: Curse?

Ryoma and Rose started walking back to the regulars. They never reached them though.

Rose felt a sharp pain in the weak points of her arms, legs, back, and head. She clutched her head in response and started shaking it trying to get rid of the pain. She was lucky only the regulars were the last ones, or she would have to wipe more memories than she needed to or wanted to. She fell to her knees and kept thrashing around.

Ryoma ran to her and yelled, 'Ro! What's wrong? Ro! Come on answer me!" He kept yelling at her to answer and looked at her face. What he saw made his heart break. He saw her eyes in pain, regret, sorrow, and most of all loneliness. She was crying now from the pain and also from something else. Something that Ryoma never knew about.

The regulars saw her start shaking her head and were already concerned. When she fell to her knees however, that is when they ran for her like their lives were on the line. They saw the tears come from her eyes and heard Ryoma yelling at her for an answer.

The group didn't know what to do when a human, more like a dragon, was like this. All they could think of to do was to take her to the club room and get her to lie down.

Momo and Kaidoh both helped Ryoma carry the girl-wait, dragon-wait, girl-ack, they didn't know what to call the girl anymore. This was the first time the two didn't argue over anything and got Rose all the way to the room.

Ryoma got out his regulars jersey and spare clothes and made a sort of bed from it for Rose to lie on. He didn't mind because she was his responsibility now that he was her master. "Rose, what happened to you?"

Everyone could sense the fear of loss in Ryoma's voice and tried to comfort him.

Kikumaru looked at Rose and suddenly ran out. The regulars thought 'where is he going?' Before they even finished the thought though, Kikumaru ran back into the room carrying a tub of water and a few towels. He put one towel into the water, wringed it, and placed it over Rose's forehead to try to cool down her head.

Rose's pained face started to lessen and Ryoma sighed in relief. "Arigato Kikumaru-senpai," Ryoma said while smiling lightly at Rose with a soft look in his eyes.

The regulars widened their eyes in surprise since their little cocky and antisocial prince smiled without even thinking.

Ryoma looked over to them and asked, "What?"

"You smiled Ochibi! You smiled!" Kikumaru yelled out before glomping said Ochibi.

"Kiku…maru-sen…pai…can't breathe…" Ryoma's face started to turn blue before Oishi pried his partner's arms from the choking prodigy.

"It is surprising how you could suddenly smile like this Echizen. Ii data," Inui muttered before scribbling in his notebook.

Ryoma's eyebrow twitched as he heard Inui and snatched his notebook away from him holding a flame in his other hand. He glared at Inui and said, "If you take any more notes about Rose's condition or our powers, I will burn this notebook and your other ones at that."

Inui gulped in fear and nodded immediately. Ryoma tossed him back the notebook and ordered him to put it away. Inui did as he was told before getting into more trouble.

Tezuka looked at Ryoma and also gulped in fear along with everyone else. Who knew that he would be so protective over the girl? "What will you do Echizen?"

"Help her of course." Ryoma walked over to sit beside Rose and put his hands on top of her chest where her heart should be. He slowly raised his hands still keeping them above Rose and muttered something. "By heaven's holy bliss and by a dragon's holy fire, heal the last dragon of the earth and heaven. Heal her from the dragon's curse placed on her when her kind was murdered by the ancestors of the present dragon hunters. Heaven's symphony." A small white circle with symbols for every element appeared from Ryoma's hands. He stood up and allowed the circle to get bigger and bigger until it completely covered Rose's body. The incantation circle wrapped placed itself onto Rose and started to glow a burning red.

The regulars gasped at the red and thought he was hurting her but stopped when they saw Rose's face start to become serene and well again.

Ryoma stopped the incantation and then bent down to pull Rose into a hug to comfort her. He knew the curse would cause her immense pain when she woke up and wanted her to know that he was there to help her. While he waited for Rose to wake up he said, "Mattaku. Why do curses have to be so difficult? Especially if they happen every year," Ryoma finished while shaking his head in disapproval.

"Curse?" everyone asked.

Ryoma looked at them still surprised that they just didn't leave already. "Did you already figure out why we lied to you?"

The regulars stared at the ground before hesitantly shaking their heads no.

"I see. I doubt that Rose will let me tell you then." Ryoma's eyes turned incredibly sad and everyone felt sad just by looking at their little prodigy.

"Ryo-Ryoma…" a voice called weakly.

"Rose!" Ryoma yelled worried.

"Ryoma. They can know now. I know how much this is hurting you so please. Just go ahead and let your heart speak. I will be fine now so don't worry. We've earned their trust once again and that's all that matters. Don't worry. Just let them know how your heart feels and you will be fine," Rose said while caringly caressing Ryoma's cheek. "I'll be fine. Don't worry." Rose slowly but surely went back to sleep with a smile on her face.

Ryoma was left surprised by her. He was surprised by her saying that he could tell his teammates and from her caressing his cheek. He shook his head to get out of the shock and then said to Rose's sleeping form, "Arigato, Ro." He then smiled again at the girl that had changed his life forever.

The regulars' eyes softened at the sight and felt happy that Rose trusted them again. They had never really lost their trust in the two but had let their anger out that they didn't trust them enough to tell. They didn't know until now that the two had always trusted them but were just afraid.

Oishi asked, "So what is this about. Why did you lie and why is Rose like this?"

"Dragon's curse," was all that Ryoma said.


	15. Trial 14: Yubi Kitta!

Chapter 14: Yubi Kitta!

"Saa…dragon's curse. What is it? Inui don't take out your notebook." Fuji said while opening his eyes to glare at Inui who was about to get his notebook out again to take notes. Inui immediately stopped and sat up while Ryoma grabbed his senpai's bag to put it behind him so he wouldn't be able to take any more data.

"Inui, if you even try to gather any more data, I can get Ro to wipe your memory…all of it," Ryoma threatened. Inui's eyes widened in shock and fear and immediately stopped trying to get his notebooks. "Mada mada dane, Inui-senpai. Now then, the dragon's curse was placed on Rose when her kind was massacred thousands of years ago." The regulars gasped that Rose had actually seen her own species being massacred in front of her very eyes. "The elder dragons placed a spell on her which turned into a curse later. The spell was originally supposed to help her but when the humans attacked them, the spell turned into a curse to cause her the pain that the dragons felt when the humans betrayed them," Ryoma finished with a tone of remorse.

The regulars lowered their heads being sad that she felt so much pain when she was an innocent bystander.

"Because of this, she has never really trusted anyone before and was surprised that she could trust you all so easily," Ryoma continued, his eyes softening. "For that, I have to thank you. She seems a lot happier now," Ryoma said while slightly smiling at the group.

"But that doesn't explain why you lied to us nya…" Kikumaru said trying to get over the shock about the curse.

"Rose will explain that to you herself. Any other questions?" Ryoma asked trying to avoid the subject.

Fuji asked, "How do we get rid of the curse?"

Ryoma's eyes widened and then closed half-way. He then responded, "She needs…a rare flower. That flower grows on a certain type of cactus. She told me of it and has said that she cannot find one because she was stuck in the cave. The flower is supposed to be blue, have five petals, and little swirls on each of the petals. At night they open up but during the day it closes."

Fuji widened his eyes at the description and yelled, "I know that flower!"

Everyone backed up in surprise while Kikumaru jumped up onto the bench.

Ryoma stared and asked, "What?"

"I have that flower in my bedroom. I collect a lot of cacti and found that one to be interesting. I'll go get it right away." Fuji was about to run out before Ryoma grabbed onto his arm to stop.

Ryoma said, "The flower will only work five minutes after it is picked and during the night. I will bring Rose to your house later tonight if that is fine."

Fuji stopped and turned back smiling. He then said, "Anything to help the girl. She is important to all of us."

"Arigato Fuji-senpai," Ryoma said while releasing Fuji's arm.

"When will she wake up?"

"She won't wake up until she gets that flower. This is going to be the first time this happens and will keep happening for more years to come."

"What can we do to eliminate it for good?"

"That is something I don't know. Every time I ask her about it, she changes to another subject completely like she doesn't want to talk about it," replied Ryoma as he slowly looked at Rose with worry in his eyes.

"Saa…what could it be. We should ask her later when she wakes up. I'm sure it's not that bad," Fuji replied trying to cheer Ryoma up.

"If it wasn't so bad, then why won't she tell me?" Ryoma snapped because he was worried over Rose so much.

The regulars gulped at the outburst and instinctively stepped back a few steps. Even Tezuka and Fuji had to move back a few steps before being clobbered by Ryoma.

"It's getting late. I'm calling my baka oyaji and telling him that Rose and I are going to a friend's house," Ryoma said fishing his cell phone out of his bag. After a quick call, Ryoma came back saying, "He said it was alright and that we can go to your house for tonight Fuji-senpai."

"Let me call my home then and say that we have guests over." Fuji was about to get his phone before he was interrupted.

The other regulars asked, "Can we come over too?"

"Hmm…let me call and see if we can handle ten more people as guests and make sure you call your homes to make sure they know. I don't want anyone thinking someone kidnapped you."

After a few more calls, everyone was able to go to Fuji's house to try and lift the curse from Rose.

"Tadaima!" Fuji yelled into his home. "Ah! Yuuta! You're home!"

"Of course aniki. I do live here you know?" Yuuta said while walking over to the door to greet his brother and their guests. "The guest rooms are prepared. Two people have to share one though. You can decide who-"

"-I'm sharing with Ro," Ryoma interrupted.

The regulars blinked their eyes at what Ryoma had said without any hesitation.

Yuuta blinked as well knowing that the boy was not that generous but ignored it and said, "Alright then. You guys can choose your rooms. Dinner will be ready in 20 minutes."

The regulars went to choose their rooms and agreed to let Rose and Ryoma have the biggest guest room considering there were two of them. The room was slightly bigger than the other guest rooms but not by much. It had a bright orange dresser, baby blue walls and two beds, one red and the other silver.

Ryoma laid Rose down on the silver bed and asked Fuji, "Can you bring the flower here now. If it is open we can use it. If not, your family might panic that she slept throughout her whole visit."

Fuji nodded and left the room. He came back a minute later carrying a small cactus about the size of his hand with a little blue flower on it. He asked, "What do we do with it?"

"Do you mind crushing it into a powder?"

"No. I'll get an herb grinder from the kitchen then." Fuji gave Ryoma the plant and went to the kitchen to get what he needed. He came back another minute later and the little flower was plucked off carefully so another would grow in its place later and ground it into a blue powder.

Ryoma mixed the powder with some water and then lifted Rose so that her head was on his shoulder. He tilted her chin up so that she would be able to drink the water mixed with the flower and got her to finish the cup. After a few minutes of waiting the regulars' eyes softened.

Rose's eyes were starting to flutter open and under them revealed bright golden eyes much like Ryoma's. Rose finally woke up. She looked around and concluded that she was in Fuji's house because of the smell of cacti. "Arigato minna. Gomen for lying."

"It's no problem Ro-chan! We are just glad you are ok!" Kikumaru yelled while glomping Ryoma and Rose.

"Why don't you tell us why you lied to us then?" Tezuka asked while everyone shook their heads wanting to know the same thing.

"Don't take any notes Inui-senpai," Ryoma ordered.

Inui stopped moving so that Ryoma wouldn't burn his notebooks full of his precious data. Inui, Kaidoh, Oishi, Kawamura, and Momo were completely silent for the whole night. The regulars didn't know how but didn't question it.

Rose looked at them sadly and then started to talk. But she stalled a bit saying, "If you are wondering why Inui-senpai, Kaidoh-senpai, Oishi-senpai, Kawamura-senpai, and Momo-senpai aren't talking. It's just cause of an aftereffect of the curse. They won't be able to talk until tomorrow since they touched me after the curse activated-"

"So why isn't Ryoma infected?" Kikumaru asked.

Rose stared at him while sighing. "It's because he is my master. You know that. As for me lying…it's for your protection."

"Our protection?" Fuji asked having his eyes opened being confused.

"You remember those DH members right?" Rose asked and got a nod from every regular in return. "Those DH members will do anything to kill me, including capturing those that know of our secret. If they knew that you knew the secret, they would no doubt target you to get to me and Ryoma. So we kept it a secret so that you, your friends, and your family wouldn't be targeted. In the past, when a person knew of a dragon's existence and refused to kill it, the hunters would torture him, his family, his friends, and everyone precious to him in order to get the information needed. I didn't want that happening to you. So I asked Ryoma to keep it a secret."

"Souka. We thought you didn't trust us enough," Kikumaru said happy that Rose still liked them.

Rose just shook her head in amusement and replied, "If I didn't trust you enough, I wouldn't have gone near you at the lake."

Fuji asked, "Rose? How do you get rid of the dragon's curse permanently?"

Everyone saw how Rose's eyes widened in surprise and gently shook it off. She smiled and said, "It's no big deal. We have the flower so I should be fine." The regulars knew the smile was fake and that she was hiding something. Even Ryoma seemed to be glaring at her to tell him the truth. She backed up out of fear before Kikumaru and Momo jumped on her and held her in their grips. Rose tried to struggle but it was no use against the two and after a few seconds she stopped. She turned her head away to avoid looking at them until Fuji took her chin to face her head to look at them. They saw her eyes look away from them. They knew that the truth they wanted to know was not going to be good but wanted to know to help her.

"Tell us what you need to eliminate the curse Rose-chan," Tezuka ordered.

Everyone could tell that she was deciding her options on what to do from the look on her face. They smiled when she started talking again. "In order to rid the curse temporarily is with the flower as you saw."

"We want to know how to get rid of it permanently," Ryoma replied.

Rose lowered her head and sighed in defeat. She knew she had to obey her master's wishes because that was the contract she formed herself. "The only way to get rid of it permanently is…to…" The others waited in anticipation for the answer. "…drink the blood of my pact master," Rose finished.

Everyone's' eyes widened in shock. She would have to drink some of Ryoma's blood in order to get rid of the curse.

Rose said, "That's why I didn't want to tell. Drinking blood from Ryoma is a painful process considering I need to drink from his dominant arm which would hinder his tennis for the next few days. It would also cause him to have faint spells and dizzy spells from time to time. I didn't want that to happen so just forget it ok." Rose did not expect what happened next.

Kikumaru, Momo, Kaidoh, and Kawamura all grabbed Rose's arm or leg to pin her down to the bed while Inui, Oishi, and Tezuka were busy trying to stop her from flailing. Ryoma and Fuji left the room and came back a minute later with a small needle in Fuji's hand. Rose widened her eyes and realized what they were trying to do. They were trying to get her to drink Ryoma's blood!

Fuji punctured Ryoma's left arm with the needle and after that, Ryoma held his arm out in front of Rose's face. Rose kept turning her face left and right to avoid getting near Ryoma's arms. Too bad luck wasn't on her side when Kikumaru, Momo, Kaidoh, and Kawamura tightened her hold on her arms and legs while Inui, Oishi, and Tezuka tried to stop her from flinging her head around. After a few minutes of struggling the boys finally got her to actually drink some of Ryoma's blood.

The aftereffects suddenly took effect as soon as she was finished when Ryoma started stumbling where he was and fell to his knees. The regulars helped him up onto his red bed in the room while Rose shook her head and said, "And that's why I didn't want to drink his blood. The aftereffects take place right after. We are lucky the DH pricks won't be back for another month or so. Demo…arigato minna. Thanks for everything and thanks for trusting me again."

"We never distrusted you. We thought you didn't trust us," Kikumaru replied.

Rose smiled at him and then said, "From now on, let's trust each other forever." She held out her dominant hand which was surprisingly her left which made everyone gasp in shock. They got over it and smiled at her. She held out her pinky while everyone else used their dominant hand to do the same. She then started chanting while shaking their pinkies up and down, "Yubi kiri genman uso tsuitara hari sen bon nomasu. Yubi kitta! (Pinky swear! If I chance to tell a lie, cross my heart and hope to die! Pinky swear!)" She formed another 'contract' by breaking their pinkies by pulling her hand straight down when the others were going to pull their hands up again unknowingly.

The others chuckled at her childish act but smiled all the same. The group was finally back together again.


	16. Trial 15: Dragon Discovery

Chapter 15: Dragon Discovery

A few months had passed and the DH members had not fought the 'Dragon Pair' since the first time. The others thought it was a good thing but Ryoma and Rose knew better. The non-regular tennis members were just happy that the regulars were normal again.

It was the day of the matches between Hyotei and Seigaku. The matches went on with Seigaku winning in the end but with two injuries. One injury to Kawamura who broke his wrist and to Tezuka who had injured his left arm once again. The team won with three wins, two losses and one no-game.

The two teams met up at the net and Rose was standing by the sidelines waiting for something but no one knew what except for Ryoma and the Seigaku regulars. When both regular teams made it out of the court, it happened.

A shower of knives showered down on the Seigaku regulars aiming at one person. The regulars sprinted out of the way while Ryoma backed out towards the courts so no one would or could get hurt. The Hyotei members were surprised, the fans screamed and ran for it, while the Seigaku members were just calm about the situation because they knew about the whole thing.

The DH members walked out from their hiding places along the courts and Sevink said, "I'm surprised you dodged those knives of mine. Not many people can avoid them. You are lucky we waited until your match finished Dragon Master."

The Hyotei members thought '_Dragon Master?'_ The phrase repeated itself in their heads.

Betaes said, "You ready to die. You are lucky there are only six of us. The other four were too traumatized to fight you again after losing so easily. Now there's only me, Sevink, Shao, Liniel, Tiaw, and Aloc left."

"I'm afraid I won't be the one defeated today," Ryoma said pulling a sword out of his tennis bag. "Come on, what are you afraid of?"

The Seigaku regulars went around and got to the Hyotei regulars. They forced the Hyotei regulars out of the courts and to watch outside the fence while Rose took the chance to slip in with her water whip ready for battle.

"You little cocky brat. Once we kill you, your dragon will be ours," the males yelled at Ryoma.

Rose kept sneaking around behind the females of the group and took them out easily with a light whip to the head. Ok maybe it wasn't so light because it knocked them unconscious for the rest of the battle.

The males took one look at Rose and yelled, "You again! That same trick won't work on us. But we will kill you dragon!"

"You couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag," Rose taunted. "You think we would lose after all the training we have done?" Rose jumped over the group and landed right in front of Ryoma. "As long as I live, I will never allow you to hurt Ryoma." The two transformed once again. They were both in their battle forms except now Rose's skin color was more of sparkling silver with gold stripes along her tail.

The Hyotei members widened their eyes in astonishment and yelled, "That little girl was a dragon!"

The Seigaku members had to cover their ears from the outburst and the DH members were surprised.

Rose and Ryoma took that chance to attack the remaining DH members. Ryoma chose to use his Fire sword that had flames instead of a blade. He placed it near Rose's head while she was preparing a ball of red energy in her mouth. They fired at the DH members yelling, "Fire Dragon Cannon!" The red orbs of energy shot out towards the group but missed entirely hitting the fence. The fence was now charcoaled. Rose took this chance to give Ryoma his dragon armor set of wings, tail, and claws.

Ryoma, with less fighting experience, fought Shao. Rose took care of Betaes and Aloc with her many years of fighting experience.

Ryoma and Shao kept locking their swords and whenever Shao attacked he always left an opening for Ryoma to slash him. Ryoma kept dodging the attacks but didn't realize Shao was backing him into a wall until he hit the wall. Shao was about to strike next before he was smashed away by Rose's dragon tail.

Rose had known was Shao was trying to do so she tried to quickly finish Betaes and Aloc off as soon as possible to help her fighting master. She used her Scale Barrage to pin Betaes and Aloc to the burnt fence and shook some powder from her wings to knock them unconscious. Now it was time to fight the strongest of the DH members. Rose quickly took off to get above the two fighting swordsmen.

Ryoma saw what Rose was going to do and immediately jumped out of the way. Shao somewhat realized that the dragon was above him and knew what to do. Rose used another scale barrage attack hoping to pin the enemy down but instead, Shao flicked his sword to deflect them. He deflected the scales right towards Ryoma who was too shocked to do anything to move.

Rose immediately saw and teleported herself between him and the scales and tried to protect him. Some of the scales escaped her barrier and hurried off towards Ryoma. The scales burrowed into Ryoma's arms and legs and he fell to the ground. Rose was in no better shape having her own scales penetrating her tail, arms, legs, wings and back. Both Ryoma and Rose roared out of pain so loud that the spectators could feel their pain.

Seigaku widened their eyes and wished that the scale barrage didn't happen.

Hyotei for once felt useless that they couldn't do anything to help and just stood there as Shao kept attacking Rose with his sword. She couldn't move at all because she was still protecting Ryoma, who couldn't move right now.

Rose was about to reach her transformation limit and then used some elements of hers. She used the air to make an invisible shield between her and Shao and then used the water in the air to form a bubble around the swordsman. She then used fire to burn him while inside the bubble just to warn him about never attacking them again. After that, Rose teleported the DH members to the other side of the planet. She knew it would take them another month to recover and a few weeks to reach them. In short they had two months to recover from the battle before the DH members struck again.

Ryoma was exhausted and was still trying to pull Rose's dragon scales from his skin. He knew that Rose was in worse condition but knew that she would want him to heal first.

The Seigaku regulars hurried onto the court to try and help their two freshmen members. Rose just told them to help Ryoma first and the Seigaku regulars knew that she would want him to be patched up first. They understood how Rose cared for Ryoma more than her own well-being.

The Hyotei regulars as well as other regulars from other schools, who were scouting, were speechless and couldn't move. They saw the dragon close her eyes and fall to the ground unconscious.

Another pure white light enveloped Rose and Ryoma and they transformed back into their human forms. Ryoma's wounds were all patched up since Oishi made fast work of them while he was still in battle form.

Rose however was a different story. Her arms, legs, and back were still bleeding from the wounds from her scale barrage and the scales were still there.

Ryoma ran over to Rose and started to gently pull out the scales from her body and the rest of the Seigaku regulars followed his example.

Rose kept wincing in pain every time one person pulled a scale from her arms, legs, or back. When all of the scales were pulled out Oishi set to work to patch up all of her wounds too. Ryoma stopped him however. He said, "This isn't any ordinary wound. It needs a spell for her to get better."

Oishi understood and the regulars all stepped back for Ryoma to do his work.

Ryoma laid Rose down and hand his hands over her chest where her heart should be and raised them again. "By heaven's holy light and a dragon's blessing, heal the one who risked her life for mine. Heaven's Symphony." A small white circle appeared from his hands once again and as he stood up, the circle began to grow larger until it covered Rose completely and burned red. After a little while, Rose's wounds were all patched up and Ryoma fell to the ground in exhaustion. Ryoma collapsed then and there.

Before Ryoma could hit the ground, Rose had opened her eyes and quickly went to catch Ryoma before he hit the ground. She then said, "By a dragon's heart and soul, heal the one most important to me. Dragon's Blessing." A small silver circle appeared from the star pendant around her neck and grew larger until it covered Ryoma and glowed bright silver. Ryoma's wounds underneath the bandages were starting to close up and after a while both of their wounds were all healed. Rose then pulled Ryoma into a hug and smiled as Ryoma was sleeping peacefully.

The Seigaku regulars smiled at the sight and went back over to Ryoma and Rose to help them up to their feet. That however was impossible, considering Rose's legs were still hurt from the scales and Ryoma was sleeping.

The Hyotei regulars and the others went out to the court to help and Atobe got Kabaji to carry the both of them.

Rose said her thanks and thought '_Oh great. More people know. Oh well, as long as they don't try anything, I won't need to erase their memory.'_


	17. Trial 16: A Wounded Heart

Chapter 16: A Wounded Heart

Gakuto said, "Sugoi…I didn't know a dragon was still alive. Didn't think that the dragon would be so cute either."

Rose instantly blushed and looked down. Everyone giggled until she said, "No one's called me cute before…"

Everyone blinked their eyes at her statement and instantly smiled, their eyes softening.

"You are too cute for words!" someone yelled.

They all looked behind them to see Jirou actually awake and not drifting off to sleep.

"You are just too cute for words!" Jirou yelled yet again.

This time all the regulars had to nod their heads in agreement.

Rose looked at them all surprised, her blush gone. She then looked at them all and smiled while saying, "Arigato…um…"

"My name's Jirou. You can call me Rou-chan if you'd like."

"Hai! Rou-chan!" Rose said with a beaming smile on her face.

The regulars there just had to smile at that. They all thought '_Kawaii!_' That thought was caught short when Rose started to cough.

She coughed slightly and then excused herself. As she ran out of the court, her coughs got worse until she ended up covering her mouth with her hands. The regulars could tell that something was up and followed after her quietly but swiftly. They followed her all the way to the trees surrounding the area where no one was. They saw her cough up violently and saw something come out of her mouth. When she bent back up after her coughing fit, they were shocked to see blood dripping from her mouth.

Rose was already tired from the fight and this just had to happen. Her body couldn't handle so many wounds at one time and her heart was accelerating too fast for her own liking. She was starting to cough up blood to get rid of the excess. Her dragon heart, when it accelerated, created more blood in her system to heal wounds and to get rid of her old blood. After she finished, she stood up and then covered her face with her hand quickly and sprinted over to the closest fountain to wash off the blood she knew was on her face before anyone could notice.

After Rose left, the regulars walked over to where Rose was standing at first and gasped. Oishi, Kawamura, Gakuto, Momo, Jirou, Kirihara, Kikumaru, and a few others looked ready to faint. The others looked with shock on their eyes about to either go look for Rose or try to calm down their teammates.

Ryoma broke the silence by asking, "Why didn't she tell me about this?"

"Saa…she probably didn't want you to worry that much. When she's ready she will tell us," Fuji said trying to comfort Ryoma.

They thought about what could have happened to Rose until they were interrupted when they heard a gasp behind them. They all turned around to see Rose staring at them with eyes wide from fear and shock.

"Please…please tell me you didn't see that," Rose nearly pleaded knowing that they had already seen what they needed to.

The regulars looked at the puddle of blood already soaking into the ground to rid itself and then at Rose signaling that they knew.

Rose looked at them, turned and ran for it. She couldn't stand looking at all their sad faces. She knew she had to run so that they wouldn't worry for her anymore. She didn't want to burden them any further. She had one thought running through her mind '_I should have never made that contract!'_

Ryoma heard the thought and instantly widened his eyes and fell to the ground. The regulars asked what was wrong and he answered quietly as if in a whisper, "She…she wishes she never formed a contract with me."

The regulars widened their eyes as well and thought '_Why?'_ The regulars decided to follow Rose but first called their homes to let their families know that they would be staying at a friends'. They followed Rose all the way to the river where the dubbed 'Dragon Pair' had first trained. The regulars found her standing in the middle of the river, her head pointing to the sky, her eyes closed. She looked as if she was meditating until she finally spoke.

Rose looked up at the sky after relaxing for a bit. She then said, "Oh Kami-sama. What did I do wrong? My body can't handle that many wounds at once. If I can't get rid of the excess blood that my heart creates in time I will die and leave Ryoma vulnerable for a few minutes which could be his downfall. I don't want to be a burden to him or his friends. My heart already aches from seeing my kind massacred before my very eyes. I don't want to see someone important to me die when I can prevent it," Rose looked down with tears in her eyes. "What do I do? What do I do? What…" Rose kept repeating the question over and over crying even harder. After a minute she was already sobbing her heart out with her hands over her eyes.

The regulars couldn't bear to see Rose like that now that they knew she was only trying to avoid burdening them. They started to walk towards Rose who didn't notice. Ryoma was the first to hug Rose from behind which caused her to gasp and look behind her.

"M-Minna?" Rose questioned seeing everyone behind her.

The regulars from Seigaku, Hyotei, and some from Rikkaidai looked at the girl and watched as Ryoma calmed Rose down.

Ryoma kept whispering soothing words into Rose's ears which made her visibly relax and fall asleep in his arms. Ryoma then said, "This means you are all staying at my house then."

* * *

Ryoma had carried Rose in his arms all the way back to the house having the other regulars, including those from other schools, come along. Ryoma knew that Rose had subconsciously once again, tweaked with his own families' memories and warned the others about it.

By the time they all entered the house, all the guests rooms were ready except everyone had to pair up to fit in the rooms. Ryoma was paired up with Rose by order of his family and the other regulars chose their own rooms.

When dinner was ready, the large group went outside to the outdoor tennis court to eat because there was not enough room in the kitchen.

Rose had finally woken up and joined them after stretching her aching legs. She still couldn't look them in the eyes wondering whether they would ask her about the blood from earlier.

The regulars knew what she was thinking and immediately said in unison, "Don't worry, we know about the blood. We won't ask about it if you don't want to say anything."

Rose sighed in relief and finally looked them in the eyes. She said, "Arigato, minna. Honto arigato."

"We heard what you said about you burdening us. Don't worry about that. We don't mind. We just want to help you Rose-chan," Jirou said looking at Rose's eyes.

"Thanks Rou-chan," Rose replied.

"Ro? What is this problem with your heart?" Ryoma asked wanting to know more about his partner.

"Looks like every bit of information about me didn't make it into your head partner," Rose said while messing with Ryoma's hair. "My heart is a dragon heart. My dragon heart creates blood to heal wounds and to replace old blood."

"Old blood?" the regulars questioned.

"Yes old blood. The blood in a dragon is constantly renewed. Our blood has mystical properties that allow us to use our magic to the fullest. If we cannot replace it our magic gets weaker and weaker until it is practically useless."

"Souka…"

"When I got that many wounds from the battle earlier, my heart accelerated faster than usual to create blood to heal them, but when Ryoma healed them with his spell, my body didn't know what to do with the excess blood which ended up in the coughing fit you saw earlier. That's the reason why I don't usually like Ryoma to heal me so much. I don't want to have a coughing fit each time when I get too many wounds."

"Sorry about that Rose. I just wanted to help," Ryoma said after she finished.

"I know you did partner. Don't worry about it," Rose said trying to comfort him. When that didn't work she did the only thing she thought she could do. She stood up and walked to Ryoma. She then bent down and kissed him on the forehead. She got the reaction she wanted and saw that Ryoma was certainly surprised.

All the regulars were surprised by that little act. They all knew now that the two dating was just an act to avoid suspicion.

Rose made sure to hide her feelings away from Ryoma and the other regulars. She didn't want Ryoma to get hurt if she was gone. She knew that if she died, she would just come back and that if Ryoma died, she would go with him. The thing that wounded her heart most of all, the fact that she knew that Ryoma would never know about her true feelings because she would always keep it hidden to protect him.


	18. Trial 17: New Promise Made

Chapter 17: New Promise Made

The next day everyone woke up to the smell of freshly cooked fish. It seems that they accidently fell asleep outside and saw that the ground around them was lighter than the ground surrounding the little circle. They wondered what was going on until Rose showed up carrying five trays of food for them all. She carried two on each of her arms and one on top of her head. They couldn't help but wonder how she could carry all that when they helped her carry it all.

"If you are wondering why the ground looks different, then the reason is because it rained yesterday night while you were asleep," Rose said before eating her share of food.

The regulars stopped eating and looked at her with shock on their faces.

Rose and Ryoma couldn't help but snicker at them. The expressions were too funny to not laugh and before they knew it they were laughing their hearts out.

The regulars were even more surprised that Ryoma was laughing along with Rose. They felt glad that their antisocial prince was starting to open up his heart in front of them. They couldn't possibly thank Rose for all that she has done for them and for Ryoma.

"Wait a minute. So if it was raining yesterday, why aren't we soaking wet?" Gakuto asked confused.

Rose and Ryoma looked at each other and then at Gakuto giggling. Rose said, "Simple. I used the element of air to create a shield around where you all slept so that you wouldn't get soaking wet."

This time everyone was surprised. Ryoma and Rose knew about their limits and were able to create the shield to protect them.

Rose looked towards Ryoma and said, "Think we should tell your parents about this. It is getting harder to tweak their memories to include me, and I know that you hated that I had to tweak their memories in the first place. We could explain things to them and they would probably accept me again even when I give them back their old memories and erase the ones including me."

Ryoma thought about this option and then hesitantly nodded. He wanted his own parents back but still wanted Rose to be accepted by them.

"Let's go then. You guys are coming as well," Rose said pointing at the regulars.

"Oi! Baka Oyaji!" Ryoma yelled out.

"What is it seishounen?" Nanjiroh yelled back.

"Get the family out here!" Ryoma responded.

"Fine, fine, fine." Nanjiroh replied.

Minutes later Nanako, Rinko, and Nanjiroh were outside in the backyard along with the other regulars.

Rose started telling them about her and Ryoma and about the dragon pact. "I am a dragon that was born 1000 years ago. Yes I know that I look way younger but this is just my human form. This whole mess started when the dragon hunters from my era decided to betray my kind and massacre them all leaving me behind to fend for myself." Rose watched as the crowds' eyes widened in shock and of pity for her because she had to see them all slaughtered in front of her eyes. "During Seigaku's trip to Lake Virtue, I was still a dragon that had lived in a cave below the waterfall waiting to find my dragon master. As you can now tell, Ryoma is the last dragon master of the world. So far ten members of a group called DH or Dragon Hunters appeared and attacked us. We got rid of them easily and it seems that four have left because they were completely traumatized from being beaten so easily by us considering that was our first fight together. That first attack was when Seigaku first found out about us. During yesterday's match, the remaining six DH members attacked us which caused Hyotei and Rikkaidai to also find out. In order to keep me around to protect Ryoma, I had to tweak with your memories to include me and your memories are now fixed to never have included me before today. I hope you forgive me and still accept me." Rose bowed showing her respect to the Echizen family.

The school regulars could definitely see the shock in the family's faces when they found out. Ryoma held Rose's hand in order to show that he would always accept her as a friend. Rose smiled and then looked back up to see the family's faces. She saw gratitude, determination, and most of all, a look of acceptance. She felt extremely happy that the family accepted her without their memories changed.

Ryoma saw the looks on his family's faces and felt relieved.

Nanjiroh said to Rose, "Of course we will accept you. After all that you said and went through, you still protected Ryoma. How can we not accept the protector of our son?"

Rinko replied, "We accept you for who you are and are sorry about the slaughter of your kind so many years ago."

"But for a dragon, you sure are cute," Nanako said. Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

Rose just blushed scarlet once again and looked down at the ground. The others giggled at her antics.

Nanjiroh recovered first and asked, "Can we see your true form since we accept you now?"

Rose looked up at him with the blush gone from her face. The others stopped laughing and also wanted to see her form once again. The regulars couldn't help but want to see her true form of a beautiful dragon, and Ryoma's family wanted to see her true form as much as the regulars. Rose nodded yes and then walked to the center of the field along with Ryoma. The family was confused about why Ryoma had to go with her but figured to let it go.

Rose and Ryoma both closed their eyes and concentrated on their transformations. A pure white light covered them once more and when the blinding light dissolved the family was surely shocked.

There stood Ryoma in all silver clothing with several different swords circling around him. There behind him was a silver colored serpent-like dragon with golden transparent wings that would help Rose glide through the air and underwater if need be. On the left wing, was a symbol of a golden sun and on the right wing was the silver moon. On her forehead was a golden star. The claws, talons, and fangs were sharper than ever and could have torn a tree in half with just one slice. Her eyes still stayed golden like in her human form. Her tail had a golden stripe wounding around it.

This time everyone was surprised about Rose's new appearance, including Ryoma. She had looked completely silver the first times they saw her but now she was a combination of silver and gold.

Rose was also surprised that she had changed appearances like this so suddenly. She said, "It seems that the more people we tell this secret to, the more I change in appearance. I think silver is your favorite color isn't it Ryoma because gold is mine." (A/N: She will change her appearance once more once everyone knows what Rose is.)

Ryoma nodded to acknowledge that silver was indeed his favorite color. He said, "Well, that's nice to know. Looks like if I tell any more people you will keep changing."

"Yeah but my human appearance won't change," Rose replied. "Do you promise to keep my secret until we reveal it ourselves?" Rose asked holding out her pinky.

Everyone nodded and then placed their pinkies on top of her and she began with her pinky swear chant, "Yubi kiri genman uso tsuitara hari sen bon nomasu. Yubi kitta! (Pinky swear! If I chance to tell a lie, cross my heart and hope to die! Pinky swear!)"


	19. Trial 18: Rollercoaster Flight?

Chapter 18: Rollercoaster Flight?

The regulars decided to take a little vacation and take Rose with them to show her what a real vacation was. They even invited Hyotei and Rikkaidai since they all knew what she was and thought 'Why not?'

They all went to a private beach owned by Atobe on the other side of Japan. They got there using Atobe's private plane which he didn't mind. Everyone but two people decided to use the private plane. Those two people were Rose and Ryoma.

Rose said, "I don't want to use a plane to get there. I'd rather fly there and feel the wind through my wings."

Ryoma added, "If she is going to fly instead of using the plane, I am going with her."

Atobe sighed in defeat and said, "Fine brats. Here is the coordinates of the beach and make sure you meet us there soon."

With that, all the Seigaku, Hyotei, and Rikkaidai regulars walked onto the plane while Rose and Ryoma transformed into their battle forms. The plane took off leaving the 'Dragon Pair.'

Rose said to Ryoma, "So how is this going to work? I mean sure you can fly but nothing long-distance so far."

"I don't know. What do you think?" Ryoma responded.

"Hmm. Get on my back and I'll fly us there. And don't worry you won't choke because of no air. I can bring as much oxygen as you need while I'm flying alright?" Rose said turning her serpent-like body to Ryoma.

Ryoma just shrugged and climbed onto Rose's back.

"Make sure you hold on tight. Don't want you flying off," Rose said. She beat her wings once and then twice before flapping them slowly. They lifted off the ground and then soared into the sky. They quickly caught up to the plane and Rose slowed down to just glide right outside the windows.

* * *

Everyone on the plane was chatting until Kikumaru yelled out, "Ochibi!"

They all looked outside the windows and gasped at the sight. Rose was a dragon and was gliding along with the plane with Ryoma on her back. The boy was smiling at the group which surprised them even more.

Ryoma looked at them and smiled because the looks on their faces were too funny. Ryoma signed some symbols into the air and a paper appeared right in front of the regulars.

The regulars opened up the paper and read the words. **'If you want us to go ahead or glide along with the plane just write the answer on the paper and I'll get it. I guess we can chat with this thing because I doubt you want the windows open at this altitude.'**

The regulars quickly wrote the response **'We wouldn't mind you gliding along with us. How are you able to breathe out here anyway Ryoma?'**

**'Simple. Rose is using her ability to control air to bring oxygen to me when I need it.'**

** 'Souka. Smart girl.'**

** 'I think Rose wants to hurry up. She is getting really impatient going this slow.'**

** 'But we wanted to chat more nya!'**

** 'I'll ask her what she wants to do…she says she will fly along with the plane but she says she wants to act like a rollercoaster until we reach the beach.'**

** 'Wait what does she mean by rollercoaster Ryoma?'**

** 'I don't know.'**

** 'Yudan sezu ni ikou.'**

** 'Hai buchou.'**

The regulars then saw what Rose meant by rollercoaster. Rose used her ability of gravity to make sure that Ryoma wouldn't fall off her back before she started flying off at insane speeds to dart in and out of the clouds and circling around like crazy. It made the regulars dizzy just looking at her. They could tell that Ryoma was having fun though seeing as he was laughing along the way and screaming the word 'Yahoo!' during the whole thing. The regulars all felt jealous that they didn't choose her offer to ride with her. They wanted to be on a rollercoaster ride too.

**'You want to ride too? Rose is asking whether you want to try being on an insane rollercoaster too.'**

** 'Yes! Yes! Yes!'**

** 'Alright then. She'll teleport you in groups onto her back but her requirement is that I have to be with her at all times.'**

** 'Ok then. A deal it is!'**

With that, the regulars were teleported in groups of five onto Rose's back to join in the 'rollercoaster' ride. She did different routines and tricks every single time which ended up in some regulars collapsing because they were so dizzy. The rides kept going on and on until they finally reached the beach. Rose was tired when she transformed back into her human form and Ryoma had to support her side.

"Daijoubu Ro?" Ryoma asked trying to support her from falling.

Rose was breathing heavily and answered through pants, "Daijoubu…Ryo. Just a bit tired is all."

"Maybe you shouldn't have offered those rides to the others. You are just too tired now."

"I'll be fine in an hour so don't worry."


	20. Trial 19: Beach Time!

Chapter 19: Beach Time!

The two, followed by the other regulars who worried about Rose, walked over to the house...err, scratch that, mansion that they were going to stay in. The mansion belonged to the Atobe's, no big surprise, and they all had guest rooms. Ryoma however insisted to stay with Rose because they were partners and Atobe reluctantly agreed.

After they all got the rooming assignments set, the boys all changed into their swimming suits and headed over to the beach. While practically all of the boys were playing beach volleyball, splashing in the water, playing with water guns, or running away from Inui's dange-I mean _healthy_ drinks, one pair was relaxing under the shade of an umbrella on two towels in the sand.

Rose was still recovering from the flight over because of all the 'rollercoaster' rides she gave to the regulars as a treat for keeping her secret. If she didn't do anything and just glided along she would have been playing in the water along with everyone else. "Why are you still here Ryoma? Shouldn't you be hanging out with the others?"

"This whole trip was meant for you silly," responded Ryoma and he shifted over to look at Rose's serene face.

Rose had her eyes closed to help her relax more but still remained alert. "I told you, I will be fine in an hour. Until then I have to rest to earn my strength back again." Rose opened her eyes to look at Ryoma with a caring look in her eyes. "Go on and hang out with the others. You are so antisocial that I don't know how people are drawn to you in the first place," Rose mocked trying to get Ryoma to hang around with the other regulars.

"Che, annoying dragirl," Ryoma responded with a smirk.

"Dragirl?" Rose asked with a confused look.

"Yeah dragirl. Short for dragon girl."

"Mou! You are so mean! Just call me Ro!" Rose responded back with a smile on her face. She knew he was joking around but couldn't help but respond.

"At least that got you to smile Ro," Ryoma said standing up. "If you insist I think I'll play beach volleyball with senpai-tachi."

"Go on ahead. No one's stopping you. As I said, those DH members are across the world still recovering from the last battle. They won't be back for another two months at least," Rose said lying back down onto her towel. For the next hour, she slept on the towel trying to regain her strength back from the flight. She cut off her mental connection with Ryoma just for the hour to think. _'Darn. I don't think I should've done so many rides for those guys. Although it was fun hearing them scream from excitement. Shoot, I'm starting to sound like Fuji with the whole sadist thing. Have to stop hanging around the guy so much. At least they had fun. I had a lot of fun making them happy. Is this what friendship feels like? I haven't had any friends since that incident 1000 years ago with the massacre. It was hard to make any friends after that and then the curse kicked in to make me stay in that cave until I met my dragon master. I'm glad Ryoma was the chosen one. He sure is friendly once you get to know him. Well the hour's up. Didn't think I'd actually fall asleep though.'_ Rose opened her eyes and then slowly got up yawning. She saw that the boys were still doing what they had been before Ryoma left. She got up and silently slipped away into the changing rooms to change into her swimming suit.

The regulars were just doing the same thing for an hour while Rose rested. When they noticed that she was gone, they nearly panicked until Ryoma told them she went to change into her swimming suit. When she came out however, they were surely surprised.

Rose came out wearing a golden one-piece with silver butterflies on the front left side and pink roses on the whole right side. On the back of the suit was a picture of her dragon form. She tied her knee-length hair into a ponytail with a golden ribbon and her skin was the color of porcelain.

The regulars thought she was amazingly pretty and couldn't stop staring until Rose gave them a glare that told them 'If you don't stop staring at me like that, then I am going to have to tell Ryoma and hurt you.' The regulars immediately went back to what they were doing before and Rose giggled.

Rose decided to play with the water. She used her elemental ability to make an enormous slide that curved around like crazy. All she did was think about the shape and waved her hands to make it appear but the regulars' expressions were priceless. She wished that she had her camera and decided to memorize their faces.

The regulars couldn't help but stop what they were doing when Rose created the enormous water slide. It was about three stories tall and there were so many spirals and curves that they had trouble following the slide from the beginning to the end in the water. The slide curves spiraled under and over each other and sometimes even loop-the-looped. The regulars couldn't help but to walk over and stare at it.

They would have kept staring at it if Rose hadn't asked, "You want to try riding this thing. I swear it would take a lot to keep going through this thing. I swear that this thing is about a mile distance if you stretch out the curves."

The regulars nodded and then tried to think of a way to get up to the top of the slide.

Rose just giggled and then waved her arms yet again. A transparent platform formed from air rose from under their feet and rose to the top of the water slide. It acted like an elevator except with no walls.

One by one the regulars went down the slide. By the time each of them had gotten out of the slide, they were stumbling around because of all the curves making them extremely dizzy. Even the most stoic of regulars couldn't help but stumble around with a dumbfounded look on their faces. The only one that wasn't stumbling around was Ryoma who was used to this sort of thing when Rose was training with him at the river.

The regulars had to sit down for about half an hour trying to gain the strength in their legs again.

Rose and Ryoma kept snickering at the bunch.

The regulars had to laugh as well because they had never been like this before. They also laughed because they were happy that Ryoma had smiled again, something that the regulars could never do since they first met.


	21. Trial 20: Sparring Match Failure

Chapter 20: Sparring Match Failure

Rose and Ryoma then looked at each and decided to do something exciting. They decided to spar. Rose flicked her hand and her water whip came into her hand. Ryoma flicked his wrists and out appeared two swords. His fire and ice sword were his most powerful swords and the ones he was most comfortable with.

The two went about 20 feet away from each other for the spar match they were about to have.

The regulars immediately sat up wanting to watch this. They wanted to see the two fight because they were great when working together, but what would happen if they fought against each other?

Ryoma made the first move by charging straight at Rose with his ice sword in front of him in his right hand, with his fire sword behind him in his left.

Rose quickly dodged to the left and then to the right when Ryoma swung his left hand at her right after he swung his ice sword. "Dragon wings, dragon tail, dragon claws. Appear now for the fight has just begun," Rose chanted. After she finished chanting, Rose had dragon armor just like Ryoma's but instead of being pure white, her armor was pure gold in color. Rose then made the next move by charging at Ryoma and at the last second jumping right into the sky twirling her body around and using her whip to take one of Ryoma's swords out of his hands.

Ryoma quickly used his other sword to knock Rose's water whip away from his fire sword by freezing it temporarily and making it shatter. He thought that she wouldn't be able to use the water whip for a while.

Rose just smirked at Ryoma. She had cut off the mental connection for the spar but knew what he was thinking when he broke her water whip. "Ryoma…there IS a reason why they call it a water whip," she said flicking her hand again. Another water whip appeared in her hand leaving Ryoma surprised. "The water whip needs to extract water from the area in order to form itself. And if you haven't noticed yet, we are right by the ocean," Rose said pointing at the incoming waves.

"Shoot. Forgot about that," Ryoma said raising an eyebrow in frustration.

While Ryoma was distracted, Rose had already gotten behind him and then whipped at his back.

Ryoma was knocked off his feet and then felt at the whip mark. He sighed in relief to find that Rose had not left any mark to scar but just hard enough to knock him over. He knew how ruthless she was in battle but knew that she would never do anything to seriously hurt him. He got back up and they started sparring again locking weapons every once in a while.

The regulars couldn't help but awe at the battle. There in front of them, stood the two freshmen regulars of the team and the dubbed 'Dragon Pair.' They couldn't help but wince and flinch every time Ryoma was knocked down to the ground. Whenever they saw Ryoma sigh in relief, they felt glad that Rose was not hurting him at all.

Rose was tired from using her water whip, dragon tail, dragon wings, and dragon claws in one battle whereas Ryoma was still as energetic as ever only using his fire and ice sword.

Since Rose had cut off the mental connection, Ryoma couldn't tell how tired she was and still kept at attacking her. He put a little too much force into his attack and when Rose blocked it with her whip, she was sent flying.

Ryoma's eyes, as well as the regulars, widened in fear as he saw Rose flying off from her position heading to the water. He could finally see how tired she was from the look in her eyes and dropped his weapons. He started rushing off towards Rose hoping to catch her because with the way she was flying, she was going to hit the water…head-first. Hitting the water head-first would surely be enough to knock her into a coma or worse, and Ryoma didn't want that to happen. He saw that he wasn't going to make it to her in time because she was going to fall 30 feet away from the shoreline. He did the only thing he could think of and summoned his air sword. He swung it in front of him and the sword released an air current going towards Rose.

The air current rushed towards Rose and then hit her wings. The force got her to turn around so that she hit the water feet-first instead of head-first.

Ryoma saw her splash right into the water and immediately rushed in after her. He ran past the shoreline and dove right into the water. He used his power that he got from the dragon pact to find her in the sea water. He swam towards the area where he sensed her presence and tried to get to her as fast as possible. He finally found her quickly sinking into the ocean depths. He was about to run out of breath but didn't care. He knew that this happened because of him, even if Rose said otherwise, and was going to help her. He finally got to her and tried to get them to the surface as fast as he could.

Rose was sinking quickly down to the sea bottom and knew that she was going to be in serious trouble. She felt something grab her arm and start to pull her up to the surface. She opened her eyes and saw Ryoma holding her arm, trying to get them to the surface. She re-established the mental connection and yelled _'What the hell do you think you're doing! You can't last under the sea for long!'_

_'I'm the one that knocked you into the sea in the first place and I'm going to help!'_

_'But you're already starting to run out of breath. Ryo just hurry and leave me! I'm a dragon, I'll be fine but you won't!'_

_'I'm not abandoning my partner!'_

_'Demo!'_

_'No buts Ro…I'm going…to get us…out of this…mess…'_

_'Ryoma!'_ Rose saw that he fell unconscious from not having enough air. They were already about 30 feet under the water surface and she had to act fast. She knew she couldn't move too fast because Ryoma wouldn't be able to handle the pressure. She did the only thing she could think of and transformed into her dragon form. She used to body to coil around Ryoma's and cover him from the seawater. She spanned out her wings which were now a mile wingspan and used them to push up and out of the water. She had to go fast but not too fast for Ryoma's sake. She used her last bit of strength to push them out of the water and into the air. She slowly uncoiled her body from around Ryoma and quickly flew under him to catch him. She started flying back to shore realizing that the current had pushed them even further out to sea. She saw the regulars frantically looking out at the sea looking for the two and saw their relieved faces when they saw her.

Rose finally reached the shore and slowly dropped to the ground and slid Ryoma off her back into the regulars' arms. She slowly got the seawater out of his system using her elemental ability and he woke up coughing up the remaining seawater. Rose stayed in her dragon form for the time being since she recovered faster in her true form than her human one.

Ryoma finally finished coughing up the remaining seawater in his system and looked over at Rose. He saw Rose coiling up like a snake and saw her chest rising up and down as she tried to catch her breath. He said, "Ok...next time we spar...make sure you say...that you are tired...before I knock you over…"

"Agreed..." Rose said exhausted.

The regulars were just glad that the two were ok and finally let a breath out. They picked up the two and carried them over to the towels so that they could rest from their battle and their little sparring match failure.


	22. Trial 21: Storms: Good? or Bad?

Chapter 21: Storms: Good? or Bad?

Ryoma and Rose had to rest for another hour because of the sparring match failure. While Ryoma was on one towel just sleeping, Rose was still in her dragon form coiling her body in a circle around all the regulars.

The regulars were surprised by how long Rose's body was. They swore that her body length was about a mile now, the same as her wingspan. They didn't mind that they were right next to her, but they did mind that they were too close to each other for their own liking.

Rose created a sound-proof barrier around Ryoma first so that he wouldn't wake up. She didn't need any sleep because she was already recovered but knew that Ryoma still had to recover. Rose kept giggling in her head about how the other regulars were reacting to her coiling them closer to each other and counted the seconds until they started yelling. Five…four…three…two...

"Oi! Get away from me!" the regulars yelled at each other.

Rose was glad that she had a sound-proof barrier around Ryoma or else he would be mad that he was woken up so harshly. She quickly said, "Shh! Ryo is still sleeping you dumbbells."

"Gomen Rose-chan," the regulars said.

"If you don't like being so close together why don't you just jump out of the group?" Rose asked tilting her head at the group.

"Why didn't we think of that?" the regulars answered.

Rose just giggled and said, "Or you could have told me that you were a little too close to each other. Mou, sometimes you can be such pains in the neck," Rose finished shaking her head.

One by one, the regulars got out of the coiling circle and started to play beach-volleyball and other games.

Rose laid her head back down next to Ryoma and decided to keep near him until he woke up. She really took a liking to him but knew she couldn't say anything. She started humming this one tune that she found her favorite in all her years. The song she found her favorite was called 'Sense of Wonder' by the artist 'Idoling.' (A/N: It's a real song.)

Ryoma was still sleeping for about an hour until he heard faint humming in his head. He knew that Rose was humming her favorite tune again like usual when she was bored. He slowly opened his eyes and looked at Rose who was right beside him. He saw the other regulars playing around on the beach like nothing happened and slowly got up. He thought of an idea that could get the regulars to love Rose even more.

Rose didn't notice that Ryoma moved and kept humming and singing the lyrics in her head.

_'**sousa We can do it!**_

**_motto HATENA darake de ikou_**

**_fushigi e no tobira wa me no mae ni aru_**

**_kono sekaijuu ga Wonder land_**

**_BOKUra wa mo sude ni Wonder RINGU_**

**_DOKIDOKI ga WAKUWAKU ni nattara_**

**_WonderFURU jan_**

**_jibun tte dare darou RIARU tte nandarou_**

**_ashita wa doushite mienai n darou_**

**_koukishin no bun dake LEBERU UP shiteku_**

**_KIMI to BOKU no Everyday_**

**_sutetamon ja nai desho_**

**_jinsei wa sh_**ugyou NARI

dakara We can make it!

motto HATENA sagashi ni ikou

arifureta kotae ja GAMAN dekinai

mahou ni ka katta Wonder life

BOKUra no mirai wa Wonder RINGU

shitai koto shite ikiteru hou ga

gambareru jan

KOKORO tte doko darou aijou tte nandarou

KISU wa nee doushite setsunai n darou

MISUTERIASU na TOKO ga gyaku ni tsubo nan desu

KIMI ga kureta Everyday

dousurya iin deshou

jinsei wa seishun NARI

tsumari We can do it!

motto HATENA de koi o shiyou

yokubari na HAATO ga mou tomaranai

omoi omo warete Wonder love

deaeta koto sae Wonder RINGU

DOKIDOKI de RABURABU ni naretara

WonderFURU jan

doushite Sense of Wonder

oshiete Sense of Wonder

jinsei wa subarashii

sousa We can do it!

motto HATENA darake de ikou

fushigi e no tobira wa me no mae ni aru

kono sekaijuu ga Wonder land

BOKUra wa mou sude ni Wonder RINGU

DOKIDOKI ga WAKUWAKU ni nattara

WonderFURU jan

LALALA We can make it!

motto HATENA sagashi ni ikou

LALALA We can do it!

motto HATENA de koi o shiyou

Let's wonder RINGU"

Then Rose heard clapping and finally opened her eyes. She looked around to see all of the regulars clapping. She had a confused look on her face and then looked towards Ryoma. He had a smug smile on his face and she asked, "What did you do Ryo?"

"I got everyone to hear your singing," Ryoma said bluntly.

Rose widened her eyes and then yelled, "What?"

"I just broadcasted your telepathy connection. What's the big problem anyway? I mean everyone loved it."

Rose just glared at Ryoma and looked down in embarrassment. She then replied, "Dakara…no one's ever heard me sing before…so I don't know whether I'm good or not."

The regulars looked at her and then laughed out loud saying, "Of course you're good. If you weren't good, we wouldn't have clapped for you!"

"Arigato for the compliments." Rose said looking at them with a smile on her face. "What should we do now?"

"How about…I got nothing…" Kirihara said.

"Hmm. How about a little swimming competition?" Rose suggested.

"How are we going to do that nya?" Kikumaru asked.

"Simple," Rose said raising her arms over the incoming ocean waves. Suddenly a large rectangle shined in the water and clear glass walls surrounded the area. "There we have it. A swimming arena."

The regulars just stared at the new arena and then at Rose. They couldn't help but gape like goldfishes at the way she could carelessly use her magic.

Rose took one look at their faces and then looked towards the sky in order to avoid laughing right at them. They were just looking too funny to not laugh at them, but the thought disappeared when she saw something in the sky. She transformed into her human form and waved her hands back to make the arena disappear.

The regulars were confused as to why Rose made the arena disappear until they saw her point at the sky. They looked up and then saw that many rain clouds were forming and not just any rain clouds but thunder clouds. They all ran for the mansion as fast as they could but weren't fast enough to escape the first rainfall. With the way the rain was beating down on them, they thought they would be stuck there until they felt no drops of rain fall on them.

The regulars looked around confused as to why they weren't pelted anymore by the rain until they looked up and saw a navy blue shield above them. They looked behind them to see Rose and Ryoma hand-in-hand making the shield above them.

Rose looked at the group who just stopped and yelled, "Keep going knuckleheads! We can't hold this shield forever you know!"

The regulars just went and ran for it knowing how ruthless the girl could get when she was angry. They all finally made it to the mansion only getting partially wet.

Rose and Ryoma just went to their room skipping dinner to rest up from using so much magic during the day. They were also trying to avoid telling the regulars for some odd reason that only they knew about.

The other regulars changed into drier clothes because the ones they were wearing were wet from the rain. They went to the dining hall which was huge, to the other regulars anyway, and went to eat dinner. The regulars didn't know that Rose and Ryoma decided to skip dinner and were worried when they didn't see them at the table.

After dinner, the regulars decided to go find Rose and Ryoma and ask why they skipped dinner and went into their assigned room. What they saw pretty much surprised them a bit.

Rose was in her dragon form but a lot smaller. She made it so that she could actually fit in the room that was half of her original size and made it so that she was a third of her original size. She was floating in the air hovering around all the furniture trying not to touch anything and was coiled around in a circle again to fit in the room.

In the middle of the coils was Ryoma who was floating on his back. He was in his battle uniform and his elemental swords were circling around him.

The regulars didn't know what was going on until a thunder sounded. They saw the two open their eyes wide and fall to the ground. The regulars quickly exited the room but kept the door partially open to hear the two talking.

"Mou! So close!" Rose yelled. "Being in my dragon form for this isn't helping either. If we didn't need to replenish our magic during every thunder storm, I would have happily been at dinner. Sheesh, sometimes I hate the element of thunder. It keeps draining all our magic and we have to constantly meditate just to regain it. You remember what happens when we get totally drained of our power."

"Grr. That sure hurt. Yes I know what you mean. Once our powers are drained we are completely defenseless for attack and we need our magic to survive. I remember the last time we had a storm back home. You forgot to tell me and by the time the storm ended, our magic was drained, and we were pretty much the living dead until the next morning when the sunlight healed us."

Rose shivered at the thought. "Yeah, I do not want to do that again. Come on we have to continue extracting magic from the ocean. That's where most magic is nowadays besides the air."

"Let's hope the storm disappears soon. We keep getting distracted by the thunder which makes it even harder. Why do we have to be in our fighting forms to do this again?"

Rose just shook her head and whacked Ryoma lightly in the head with her tail saying, "Baka. We can extract magic and heal faster in these forms. This forms are made for extracting magic and healing so get used to it silly."

With that, the two went back to how they were. Rose was again hovering in the air with her eyes closed and Ryoma was lying in the air on his back with his swords around him once again.

The regulars wanted to help them out because they did not want to see what happened when their magic drained.

Atobe said, "Maybe we can sound-proof the room so they won't hear the thunder."

"Good idea monkey king," someone said.

Atobe flinched and looked inside to see Ryoma having one eye open staring at him.

"If you can help us by doing that, then please do so. I'm getting tired over here," Rose said trying to be as polite as possible.

Atobe called the maids and told them to soundproof the room which caused Ryoma to go back to his original form and Rose to go into her human form. After the maids put up the material to make the room soundproof the two went back into their fighting uniforms and started hovering in the air again.

Rose said with her eyes closed, "We need to concentrate for an hour. Let's hope the thunder doesn't interrupt us again. As soon as we are done, we will tell you everything alright minna?"

"It's fine. We'll make sure that no one gets in the room then," Atobe offered.

"Arigato, Atobe," Ryoma said.

Let's just say that Atobe was certainly surprised that Ryoma had called him by his first name.

For the next hour, the storm got better and better until it was finally gone. When the thunder storm disappeared Rose and Ryoma got out of their trance and transformed back.

Rose started to explain the story by first saying, "Dragons and dragon masters pretty much hate storms once they make contact. The thunder and lightning pretty much take up all the magic in the air and in our bodies. During thunderstorms we have to meditate in our fighting forms to resist the thunder and lightning from taking our powers. If our powers are drained from a thunderstorm, we look pretty much dead until the sun comes up and heals us. That's why we skipped dinner. We had to try and concentrate for an hour. We would've been done earlier, but the thunder wouldn't let us concentrate for more than a half hour at average and when you guys first arrived we were about 50 minutes in already."

Ryoma continued saying, "We didn't want to lose our powers and look like fools while we were here so I guess we're…sorry."

The regulars looked at each other and then at Rose and Ryoma. They then all yelled, "You're forgiven!"

Kikumaru then added, "You should've told us nya. We would've helped you nya."

Rose then told Ryoma, via telepathy, _'Looks like the storm brought us even closer to the regulars. Maybe storms aren't so bad after all.'_

_ 'Guess they aren't. Looks like we have the storm to thank for this one.' _"I sure am hungry since we skipped dinner," Ryoma said.

"Me too. I'm hungry but what are we going to do about it?" Rose said while shrugging.

With that, the maids came in with food and said, "Master Keigo had ordered that we bring you food after you finished meditating."

The two said their thanks to the ladies and they left. They then looked over at Atobe and said 'Arigato' which he accepted rather quickly.

All in all, the storm was in turn a good thing for the two dragon partners despite being a bad thing at first.


	23. Trial 22: Is This a Laughing Matter?

Chapter 22: Is This a Laughing Matter?

"Say what!" the regulars yelled at Rose.

"I said I want to go hiking in the mountains close to here," Rose bluntly replied.

"Demo why?" Kikumaru replied. "I mean that place has mountain lions, snakes, bears and all sorts of things."

"I would've thought that you would like to see the cats you cat-fanatic," Rose snickered.

Kikumaru just pouted at her reply.

"Come on. I just want to go up there for a while. Just by myself. I'll be fine. Besides we are still on a two-week vacation and it's only the fourth day here. I want to go to the mountains. I'm starting to get sick of being at the beach for the last three days," Rose finished with a pleading look in her eyes.

The regulars immediately tensed up and tried not to look at the girl. If they even looked at her, she would get her way.

Rose got her way anyway and while they were looking away from her, she created a clone of herself to last a good ten minutes while she made herself invisible to get into the mountains. By the time the regulars found out and yelled, Rose was already climbing the mountain. "Hmm. I wonder if they will try to follow me. Hope not. I want to spend some time by myself today. I know! I'll cut off the connection between me and Ryoma just for today." With that, the connection was lost.

* * *

Ryoma suddenly stopped running towards Rose. He couldn't feel her presence anymore. That's what made him worried. He then said, "She cut off the connection between us. I can't locate her position now."

The regulars were in a frenzy running around screaming.

Oishi was yelling, "What do we do? What if she gets lost? What is she gets hurt? What if…" He kept rambling on and on and on.

Ryoma couldn't take it anymore and yelled, "Would you guys just stop! When she cuts off the connection, it just means she wants to be alone for awhile. She'll be back before sundown. In the meantime we should probably prepare soon."

The regulars threw confused looks at Ryoma before he finally explained what was going on. Then the regulars finally understood and started preparing for tomorrow. It was going to be a fun day tomorrow, and they all knew it.

* * *

Rose was busy climbing the mountain and was finally at the top. She was a little bit tired from climbing the two mile high mountain but not really at the same time. She was used to this sort of thing from all her training when she was young. "Hmm, I wonder what the regulars would do if I just made it snow on them right now. I bet they would freak. I would love to see that." Rose transformed into a different fighting form. She transformed into a flying horse and made her wings disappear for the day. She galloped down the mountain and stopped at the foot. She opened her mouth and a clear blue orb formed. She shot the orb right at the sky, and snow clouds began to form. She used her element ability to blow the clouds over to the beach where she knew the regulars were and then made it snow. She galloped back to the beach to see the regulars in frenzy.

Kikumaru was yelling, "It's snowing! It's snowing!" while jumping around trying to catch snowflakes.

Others were confused as to why it would snow at a beach.

At this moment, Rose walked out onto the beach and looked at the group. Since she cut off her connection with Ryoma for the time being, she knew he wouldn't be able to tell it was her especially since she cloaked her wings.

The regulars stopped running around and looked at the pure white horse that walked onto the beach. The horse was about 15 hands high, her mane being pure white reaching to her chest, and her eyes golden. The regulars walked up to the horse and slowly put their hands in front of her eyes.

Rose didn't back up at the movement because they weren't moving as fast as they normally would. She walked up to Kikumaru and nudged him in the back.

Kikumaru was surprised that the horse nudged him. "She seems friendly!"

"No kidding. Considering she just nudged you again," Ryoma said bluntly.

Rose thought of an idea that would really freak the regulars out. She stepped back a few steps and then charged right at Kikumaru. Before he could even move, she nudged him so hard to send him into the air screaming and caught him on her back before he could hit the ground. She could tell that he was like a cat stuck in the ceiling the way he tensed up. She couldn't help but laugh in her head.

Kikumaru was scared out of his skin seeing the horse charge straight at him and then sending him flying. He was happy that the horse caught him in time before he hit the ground. Kikumaru grabbed her mane lightly and then tried to get her to trot around which she immediately did.

The regulars were scared stiff when Kikumaru was sent off flying but felt relieved when Kikumaru was riding on the horse with ease. It seemed the horse just wanted him to go for a ride.

"Saa…strange how that horse appeared right after the snow appeared," Fuji said interrupting the silence.

"Good point. Ii data…" Inui scribbled again in his notebook and everyone sweat-dropped.

"Something about that horse seems familiar. She is way too friendly with us, and buchou even said that there are no horses around here," Gakuto said.

"He's right, there is something familiar with that horse," Ryoma replied.

"Nya, who cares? We got a new friend now, ain't that right…um…what should we call her?" Kikumaru asked while getting off of Rose's back.

Rose nudged her head down and started to make a pattern in the sand with her ears. She drew a picture of a snowflake.

Ryoma saw this and said, "I guess she wants us to call her Snow." He knew he was right when 'Snow' nodded her head.

Rose got them all to take a ride on her back for the day and then freaked them all out. She stood up on her hind legs and yelled, "Hello everyone!"

The regulars were so surprised that they all shrieked, screamed, ran, fell, etc.

Rose was laughing her head off while she got down onto all four of her horse legs and a pure golden light enveloped her. She transformed back into her human form and was still laughing her heart out.

The regulars were certainly surprised to see Rose standing where the horse was a minute ago.

Ryoma recovered first and said, "No wonder you seemed so familiar. I forgot that you can hide your wings when you transform into a flying horse. I got to remember that you can look like the real animal by changing your appearance. Have to remember that when you transform into a rainbow-colored phoenix."

Rose wasn't paying attention to Ryoma because she was still laughing. She finally calmed down enough to say, "You should've remembered the look at least Ryoma. Man did you guys look hilarious. I want to scare you guys again sometime," she finished with a smile on her face.

The regulars looked down in embarrassment. Even the most stoic ones were embarrassed by being surprised so easily.

Ryoma and Rose looked at each other and then laughed together. Pretty soon all the regulars were laughing along with the two.


	24. Trial 23: SURPRISE!

Chapter 23: SURPRISE!

The next day was certainly weird for Rose. She woke up in the morning at 7 to find Ryoma gone from their room. When she went to the bathroom to do her morning routine she found a note that read **'Gone with the other regulars to hang out in the forest. Feel free to stay at home and relax. Oh yeah, by the way, we will meet you around lunch today in the dining hall. See you later, your partner, Ryoma.'**

"Well, that's just great. What do they expect me to do while I wait to meet them?" Rose questioned asking no one in particular. She spent the morning wandering around the mansion and finally found the library. She spent the next two hours reading book after book about dragons seeing what the humans thought about her kind. It was the general thing with dragons being a symbol of evil and she scoffed at each one. She knew those dragons from when she was little and knew that those were the dragons that had first formed dragon pacts. They were unlucky since their masters' were bandits, robbers, pirates, or just plain killers.

Rose walked out the library bored and walked into the garden. She saw many animals in the garden including rabbits, deer, birds, butterflies, fish, and ponies. Walking out towards the animals, Rose wondered whether they would like her since she was actually a dragon. When she approached them, the animals did not cower in fear but instead walked up to the girl and got her to play with them. She played with them the entire morning and then finally went to the dining hall to meet up with the regulars.

Rose walked into the dark dining hall wondering where everyone was until the lights suddenly came on and people yelled, "Surprise!" All she could do was blink with a surprised look on her face. She saw the regulars come out of their hiding places and out into the room. She asked, "What are you guys doing anyway?"

Ryoma came up to her holding something behind his back. He walked up to her and then pulled out the bouquet of roses that he had gotten for her and said, "Happy Birthday Rose!"

Rose was certainly surprised. She didn't tell anyone about her birthday and didn't even know that her partner knew about it. "But…how?" she questioned.

"Easy. It was one of the facts that I received when we formed our pact."

One by one, all the regulars came up in groups to give Rose her gift.

Yukimura, Sanada, Yanagi, and Yagyuu went up to Rose and handed her a photo album. When Rose opened it, it had pictures of the times they hung out together with Rikkaidai, Hyotei, or Seigaku. They said they got all the pictures from each school and put it together in an album so that she would always remember them no matter what. She gave them each a hug to say her thanks.

The next group was Kirihara, Niou, Marui, and Jackal. They had something in a box the size of her hand. When Rose took off the ribbons and removed the lid she squealed at what she saw. She saw two pairs of earrings. One was in the shape of two butterflies with little chains dangling down. The other pair was of two dragons, one white and one black. She put on the dragon pair earrings first right away and immediately hugged the group after.

Atobe, Kabaji, Oshitari, and Jirou decided to be next giving her a box wrapped in silver ribbon that was as big as Rose but was only four inches thick. Rose untied the ribbon and removed the lid to reveal the most gorgeous dress she had ever seen. It was a golden strapless dress that had a silver sash wrapping around the right shoulder down to the left hip and wrapped around her waist. Jewels were sewed onto the sash every two inches to make it sparkle in the sun. The dress was slim and she wondered how they got her measurements because when she tried it on in the dressing room and came out, she said it was a perfect fit. Ryoma answered explaining how somehow the information about her sizes made it into his head as well when the pact was signed. She hugged all of them in return.

Gakuto, Shishido, Ohtori, and Hiyoshi were next to give Rose their present and blushed when she took it. They gave her a bag that was pretty heavy. When she looked inside the bag, she widened her eyes in surprise and showed the contents. Inside was a book containing scrapbook material, drawing material, as well as patterned fabric. She looked at them with caring eyes and gave them a hug as well which caused them to blush even further.

Tezuka, Fuji, Inui, and Kawamura were up next to give her their gifts. Tezuka had given her a book filled with information of medical herbs. Fuji and Kawamura pitched in to get Rose a camera that worked underwater. Inui gave her a book containing all of the information she gathered on her. (A/N: I couldn't think of what he could give her.) She hugged them all which caused them to widen their eyes in surprise and their face turned the lightest shades of pink. Rose quickly took a picture with her new camera of their faces and saved it for the scrapbook she was going to make with the gifts she got from Gakuto, Shishido, Ohtori, and Hiyoshi.

The second to last group was Momo, Kaidoh, Oishi, and Kikumaru. Momo had gotten her a one-piece swimsuit with the picture of a multi-colored roses on the back and a blue dragon on the front. Kaidoh had gotten her a book to learn more about animals considering he saw how she was playing with the garden animals earlier. Oishi and Kikumaru decided to get her something that was tennis-related and gave her a new racket. They realized her old one was starting to wear out. The racket they got her was bright gold on one side and shining silver on the other. She hugged them all and then went to Ryoma who called her over.

Ryoma had already given her a bouquet, but he knew that was just out of courtesy from him, when Rose seemed to think that was his gift to her. Ryoma got a small box from behind him and told her to open it. Inside the box was a silver and gold pendant with the words **"Dragons' Fire, Heavens' Dance, Both Will Make This Friendship Last" **Ryoma then took the pendant and split it in half where the colors crossed. He gave the silver half to her and kept the gold part.

Rose was ecstatic and quickly gave Ryoma a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

The regulars could definitely say that Ryoma was surprised from that considering he started blushing and pulled his cap over him head some more to hide it.

Rose got out her new camera and told the regulars to get in a group. She set the camera on a table and fixed it to get them all in the picture. She set the timer for ten seconds and then ran into the picture. Rikkaidai was on the left, Hyotei was on the right, Seigaku was in the middle. Rose decided to stand in the direct middle right next to Ryoma. The camera went off and when she went to check the picture, she showed it to the regulars. They all smiled and wanted to take more pictures. She took two more pictures with them all but had Rikkaidai in the middle for one and Hyotei in the middle for another. Then she took pictures with each school separately. Then she took pictures with each individual group and had the gifts of that particular group in her arms. Of course it was harder when she was with Fuji and Kawamura because their gift was the camera. They just decided to have another camera take it so that she could hold the one they gave her.

By the time the party finished, she had over 50 pictures. Somehow Ryoma had convinced her to take pictures of her in her dragon form, flying horse form, and phoenix form to take pictures with the same individual groups she used for the gift pictures, each school, and then everyone. Then Rose convinced Ryoma to do the same with the pictures he was involved in having his swords circling around him when he was in the picture. Then the regulars insisted that they take pictures only with the two dragon partners and no one else. The two agreed and then did pictures in their human appearance, her dragon form, horse form, pheonix form, and his fighter form.

Everyone had a great time celebrating Rose's birthday and thought that it was a good coincidence that they decided to have a vacation that included her birthday.

They spent the rest of the day using the new gifts they had gotten Rose. First she went swimming with the new swimsuit she got from Momo. Then she played everyone with the new tennis racket she got. She pretty much surprised Rikkaidai and Hyotei with the way she played. She and Ryoma surprised them even more when they played as a doubles pair. They had so many surprises for one month, you'd think that they were already bracing for another surprise any minute.

After dinner, they had the cake. Rose's birthday cake had 13 candles because she looked like she was a 12-year old. She blew out the candles and then looked over at the design. She knew it was custom made because the dragon on the cake looked exactly like her latest dragon form when they revealed the secret to the Echizen family. She couldn't be happier but that thought went down the drain when they cut the cake. The cake was filled with her favorite type of ice cream. She squealed in delight and the regulars laughed because of her childish antics. She didn't care and laughed along with them.

The day went flying by and she was able to read the books she got, looked through the photo album from Rikkaidai, and got started with her own scrapbook printing the pictures from today using Atobe's picture printer.

The regulars couldn't believe how many pictures they had taken and wondered how Rose would organize them all.

Rose already had an idea in mind and set to work immediately.

Before everyone went to sleep, Rose called them to the living room to show them something.

Rose took out the scrapbook she had finished starting and the cover showed a yellow, black, grey, white, and blue dragon to represent everyone's school colors. The dragon's head formed a sort of lock because the body winded around the book cover, onto the spine, onto the back cover, and the tail reached back to the front under the head to make the lock. She opened up the scrapbook and showed everyone how she organized it. Inside, the first picture was of all the regulars and so were the next few pages. Then the next pages showed Seigaku pictures only and people snickered when they caught sight of Tezuka, Inui, Kawamura, and Fuji blushing. The next pages were of Hyotei and the next pages were of Rikkaidai. The very last pictures were of Rose and Ryoma alone in their human appearances and then their battle appearances. The pages had at most two pictures on each page and had little ornaments attached thanks to Gakuto, Ohtori, Shishido, and Hiyoshi. The pages had little birds, butterflies, ribbons, dragons, and other decorations.

The regulars were certainly surprised at how fast she could make the scrapbook considering it was only an hour since dinner and fell anime-style when she bluntly said, "I work fast."

Fuji praised her on the photos she took being a photographer himself and the others praised her as well.

Rose thought today was the best day so far in her human life and thought she could definitely get used to this if she stayed with Ryoma.


	25. Trial 24: Boredom Equals Danger

Chapter 24: Boredom Equals Danger

It had only been one week since the group started their vacation, and Rose was already bored out of her mind. She wanted to play tennis but surprisingly, Atobe didn't have any tennis courts around the mansion. She got so bored that one time…let's just say that the regulars had to lie in bed for a day after what happened.

"Rose-chan can sure be scary when she's bored nya…" Kikumaru said with obvious fear in his voice.

"Remind Ore-sama to build some courts around here if she ever comes by again," Atobe said agreeing with Kikumaru.

"Yudan sezu ni ikou," Tezuka bluntly said.

"Says another person who got beat," Yukimura pointed out.

The regulars kept discussing Rose's behavior. The only one that wasn't hurt was Ryoma of course. After all, he was her dragon master, so it would be weird if she hurt him. And the fact that he was smart enough to get the heck out of her way when it happened.

Ryoma decided to go see what Rose was doing in the meantime while the regulars rested up from today's…accident. Ryoma shivered at the thought of remembering. He went to the beach where they all last saw Rose and couldn't find her anywhere. He walked all over the beach and looked into the forest. He finally found her lying down in a patch of flowers.

Rose was relaxing comfortably in the patch of her favorite flowers which happened to be her name. She thought it great that she could be named after the pretty flower. She was relaxing after today's accident and felt guilty that she took out her boredom on the regulars. _'I really have to work on this whole "I'm bored" thing of mine. It's going to be really troublesome if I don't.'_

"You got that right Rose," Ryoma replied walking up to her careful not to crush any flowers.

"Hey Ryo. What's up?"

"Nothing much. Regulars discussing what happened today."

"Oh…that…I…went way out of control there."

"You think Ro?"

**_Flashback Starts_**

"Mou! I'm bored!" Rose complained to Ryoma.

"Sorry but monkey king doesn't have any courts to play on here," Ryoma replied.

"Baka Atobe. He's a tennis player. He should at least think to have built a court here. Now what are we going to do?" Rose complained again.

"Shut up you brats," Atobe yelled after hearing Rose.

"Oh he did not just tell me to shut up and call me a brat," Rose said glaring at the Hyotei tennis captain.

"Uh oh. Atobe, I think you should take that back, like right now!" Ryoma yelled at the captain.

"Why?" Atobe questioned, "She's just a little girl. What can she do to me?"

"Did he just call me…Did he just call me a little girl..." Rose said menacingly.

Ryoma gulped and then walked a few steps away from her.

"No one calls me names when I'm around and freakishly bored at the same time," Rose said glaring daggers at Atobe.

Atobe looked at Ryoma confused and saw him mouth the words 'Run away now!' Atobe didn't understand and realized it too late when Rose transformed into her phoenix form. Atobe just started running right then and there.

Rose said to Ryoma, "Just let me at him this once. I really want to kill him right now. He was annoying me before but now it's gone a bit far."

Ryoma just nodded him head in reply. He actually valued his life. He knew Rose wouldn't kill him but could hurt him enough to make him feel like he was.

Rose just smiled a smug smile at her partner and then counted down the seconds before she went after Atobe. Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two…one… and Rose just took off and flew straight towards where Atobe was running. It wasn't long until she caught sight of Atobe and saw him dragging the other regulars along with him yelling that Rose was out to get him.

Atobe was running for his life and his teammates decided to join him after he practically ran into them and explained the situation. The regulars decided to run along with him just in case Rose came after them too. They soon came across the Rikkaidai and Seigaku regulars and told them the situation.

"Saa…we should start running then," Fuji said.

Atobe questioned, "Why?"

All he got in reply was Fuji pointing at the sky. He looked up to see a large bird flying towards them and then thought nothing of it…until he saw the wings. He saw the rainbow colored wings and then yelled, "Run!" at the top of his lungs.

The regulars decided to run for their lives.

Rose looked at the running regulars and decided to chase them around for a bit. She knew that they would be mad at her for this later but knew they couldn't do anything unless they wanted to be burnt to a crisp. She started laughing a little bit, albeit a bit evilly as well. Who knew that the sweet Rose could have a sadistic side when it came to insulting her when she was bored? She thought '_I really have to stop hanging around with Fuji. I'm turning more into a sadist with every passing day. Oh well, this will be the last that this happens…I hope.'_

The regulars stopped…but not to catch their breath. They were trapped against a steep mountain wall and were stuck waiting for Rose to come flying in.

Rose looked at them all and said, "Well, isn't this funny. Instead of a dragon being caught by people, it's the other way around," she finished with a smile all too alike the two sadists in the group. She then shot them a look that said 'Better not make me so bored next time vacation comes around and don't ever insult me again.' With that she blew a flame so large that it cornered them. She only made it to burn their legs a little so that they would heal in a day.

Let's just say that the group was too traumatized to move and Rose had to carry them all the way back to the mansion to have them all patched up. She was scary when she was insulted and even scarier if she was bored when she was insulted. The regulars learned never to insult her unless they wanted to be burnt to a crisp.

**_Flashback Ended_**

"Oh shut up. You know how I get when I'm freaking bored."

"Get used to it. We won't leave for another week and we have pretty much done everything here."

"Want to explore the sea with everyone?" Rose turned her head to look at Ryoma.

"Hah?" was the reply that she got along with Ryoma's confused face.

Rose giggled a bit and said, "I could make it so that we can explore the ocean with everyone. If they would like."

"Let's ask then," Ryoma held out his hand for Rose to take and pulled her up. They started walking back to the mansion and found the regulars finally being able to get out of bed.

The regulars tensed up as soon as they saw Rose enter the room and quickly said hello.

Rose and Ryoma had to laugh at them because of their reactions.

Rose decided to break the awkward silence by saying, "Anyone want to explore the ocean tomorrow?"

The regulars looked at her surprised.

Rose continued, "I realized the only thing we haven't done at all in this trip is go explore the ocean, the forest, or the mountain. We still have a week left so I thought maybe we could go explore. If anyone has any objections about us slacking off, we could say its training."

The regulars looked at each other and then at Rose saying, "How?"

"Easy. I am a dragon so I can breathe underwater for an eternity like with the poison incident. I can create air bubbles for you to use to breathe underwater for nine hours each time."

The regulars looked at her and then looked at the three captains to receive a nod in reply. That was when they all yelled, "Yahoo!"

Rose, Ryoma, Tezuka, Yukimura, Sanada, Fuji, and a few others had to cover up their ears to avoid breaking them from the outburst.

They all decided to explore the sea the next day, the forest the next, and the mountain the next day and then just plain old relax on the last three days of the trip.


	26. Trial 25: Crash

Chapter 25: Crash

"Alright! We're finally here!" yelled Rose as she walked all the way to the shoreline in the new swimsuit she got from Momo. "Come on and hurry up…or do you want me to be bored?"

The regulars' eyes widened in fear, and they all ran for the shoreline because of what happened the day before.

"So how are we going to do this?" Gakuto asked.

"Easy," Rose replied. She transformed into her dragon form that was meant for swimming and flying and quickly took in a mouthful of seawater.

"Are you sure that's safe to do that?" Oishi asked worried again.

"It's fine, as long as I don't swallow," Rose replied telepathically to Ryoma who relayed it to Oishi. Rose then started blowing bubbles from the sea water filled with enough oxygen to last then nine hours. She blew enough for 25 people and all the regulars took one. "Put it on top of your head and let's go already." Rose transformed back into her human form and dived into the water.

The regulars did not want to be left behind, so they put the bubbles onto their heads and dived in as well. They dived really shallow so that if the bubble didn't work they could go right up. They were about to scream for air but realized that they could breathe just fine. They looked around and saw Rose swimming, more like darting, through the water like a torpedo. They swam up to her trying to catch her and saw her go down towards the bottom.

Rose wanted to make sure they had a good time. She had already explored a bit of the sea earlier because of yesterday and wanted to show them. She quickly got them to follow her ten feet at a time before they stopped because of the changing pressure. After they were used to the intense water pressure she led them to a steep wall at the bottom of the ocean. Of course since they were so far underneath the water surface, Rose had to use her light element to light their way.

On the way to the wall, the regulars were amazed by what they saw. They saw fish they haven't even heard of, creepy plants that could have snapped and caught them, and other amazing things. They finally reached a cave and followed Rose inside. What they saw immediately made them want to get out of the cave.

Rose went into the cave and saw who she was looking for. She looked at the regulars and saw their scared faces. She cast magic so that the hosts of the cave would be able to talk in human tongue. She then said, "These are my master's friends. I told you all about them yesterday. Now please don't bite them…King of the Sharks, King Crash."

"Oh course not. Why would we want to anger the last dragon of Earth? I still can't believe what happened with the humans 1000 years ago. I truly pity that you had to see such a horrid event take place right in your home. Welcome to my humble abode. Let me take your human companions to the air cave above us." The king of sharks, King Crash, replied. He was a great white shark and the largest one the regulars had ever seen. He was three times the size of any normal great white and was actually a deep shade of gray with white stripes along its back and fins.

The regulars didn't know what to do and looked over at Rose.

Rose just nodded to follow him and said, "He won't bite…as long as you don't start bleeding." Rose left to follow King Crash and the regulars followed her right after.

The regulars were led to an enormous air-filled cave above where they were. Rose decided to drag them all up into the air cave in order to adjust to the pressure and air in the cave.

Kikumaru, as soon as he was adjusted to the room, started to run around the place yelling, "Sugoi! This place is just…sugoi!"

Oishi was once again worrying for his partner yelling, "Eiji! Be careful!"

King Crash just laughed along with his shark subordinates. After he calmed himself down he said, "As long as he doesn't fall into the water, he will be fine. Those bubbles that Rose created last in the water just fine but as soon as you reach the air, POP!, those bubbles are no more. Now then, tell me, how it is being the last dragon of Earth Rose?"

Rose was walking around the area, or flying around, and replied, "It's not as fun as it seems. For over 900 years I was waiting around stuck in a cave waiting for my master. Not allowed to go out, not allowed to see the world with my own eyes, only allowed to see the world through visions in my dreams. But I've come to like this world when Ryoma finally found me." Rose then walked over to Crash and whispered something into his ear.

Crash whispered, "That's too bad." He then said aloud, "I hope you are treating Rose nicely. She has been through a lot and does not need any more pain in her life…or loneliness."

"What do you mean?" Ryoma asked.

Crash looked at the boy confused, "What do you mean 'What do you mean?'? She has been lonely for over 900 years because of the massacre of her kind. She has had no friends, no family, nothing to comfort in. She has been alone for many years, and I do not think that she would ever want to lose anyone precious to her again."

"Souka…Ii data…" Inui muttered.

"Is he always like that?" Crash asked Rose.

Rose just nodded yes and then teleported the notebook out of Inui's hands into her own. She then glared at him saying, "If you take any notes about this encounter, I will seriously just wipe your memory about this." She then teleported all of Inui's notebooks back into his room at the mansion and locked them in a safe she placed in there a while ago.

"So that's why you were so worried to show your feelings. You felt that you would be lonely if you let them all out…" Ohtori said.

"Yes. That's why I only truly trust my true self to Ryoma. But I think I can trust you guys just fine now. I'm actually pretty childish when it comes to being outside of a battle. I mean I act like an eight-year old kid sometimes," Rose said sheepishly scratching the back of her head.

"But you are pretty cute when you do," Ryoma replied.

"Honto!" Rose exclaimed obviously happy that Ryoma called her cute.

The regulars chuckled at her because she was truly as childish as she said she was. She was starting to show her true self which was to them an honor.

Rose then laughed along with everyone. Crash and Rose got everyone to explore the sea bottom. They showed them all the sharks in the area, all the sunken ships, explosive mines which they never touched thankfully, and then went up to a higher sea level to see many animals.

The regulars couldn't help but smile at Rose because she suggested doing this. They had a lot of fun even though Crash gave them a scare.

Rose called out with a whistle and then came along a group of 30 dolphins or more. She cast a magic spell over them so that they could talk in human tongue as well. She told them what she wanted and they got to work.

The regulars were certainly surprised when they were each confronted by a dolphin, each with its own colored eyes and fin-bands to tell them apart. The dolphins reached out to their hands asking, "Why don't you come for a swim?" The regulars obliged but started to regret it soon after. As soon as they got onto one of the dolphins back, the dolphins swam straight ahead like a bullet nearly knocking the regulars off their backs.

Rose and Ryoma snickered because they had planned this if the dolphin group came.

Pretty soon, the regulars were familiar with all the animals when they had to go back home.

Rose looked at her underwater camera that she brought along with her and looked at the clock function. "Wow…five in the evening already. Guys! We got to go now! It's already five!"

The regulars looked at her yelling, "What! That late already!" Even the stoic ones were surprised by how late it was.

Rose slowly got them to the surface again by getting them used to the water pressure so that they wouldn't get hurt. As soon as they got out of the water, she transported them all in front of the Atobe mansion to get them inside.

The regulars dried off and got some dinner while Rose was busy.

A few hours later, Rose came out with something behind her back. When the regulars asked, she brought out her personal scrapbook with the pictures she took inside. She opened to the pages after her solo pictures with Ryoma and showed the pictures she took today. There were over 50 pictures: the regulars with the sharks, the sharks on their own, the regulars with the dolphins, and the dolphins racing around with the regulars on their backs. This time the decorations were sea-themed like seaweed, shells, sand castles, beach toys, sea animals and the like.


	27. Trial 26: Seikatsu

Chapter 26: Seikatsu

"Time to head out to the forest nya!" Kikumaru yelled at the group.

"Saa…did you do explore this place Rose-chan?" Fuji asked curiously. "After all, you did explore the sea earlier than when we visited."

"No," Rose said, "I didn't explore this place at all, I don't think."

'_She doesn't think she has explored this place before? Saa…interesting…' _Fuji thought.

"Well then let's go!" Momo yelled.

"Baka…" Kaidoh muttered.

"What did you say Mamushi!"

"Want to fight!"

"Bring it!"

"Would you two calm down you overly sized oafs!" Rose yelled. "Sheesh, you're going to scare all the animals away."

The two immediately stopped arguing with each other and settled with glaring.

Rose just sighed, shaking her head, and walked on to the forest.

The regulars had to be fast and cautious because Rose was practically jogging the way she was walking. They occasionally saw her jump from time to time and saw that she was jumping over animals that were walking across the forest floor.

They walked along for about an hour seeing tons of animals and plants. They saw snakes that were pretty harmless, little birds, rabbits, deer, skunks, and many other animals.

Rose was able to get all of the animals in the forest to talk in human tongue so that they could talk with the humans. After another hour of talking with the deer, rabbits, and birds, the regulars got to walking again.

The regulars realized they were about a two hour walk away from the mansion and questioned why Rose wanted to go so deep into the forest.

Rose didn't know where she was going, but her feet seemed to know where to go. She looked ahead with her elemental ability of sound in order to 'see' what was up ahead. She smiled at what she found and then yelled, "Hurry up! I found something interesting!" With that, Rose just sprinted off in a direction that was cleared of any roots, plants, and trees.

The regulars ran towards her after she sprinted off. They finally caught up to where she stopped and stopped as well. They were amazed at the sight before them. There was a lake about the size of five tennis courts.

Suddenly everyone heard the sounds of something crashing against the water. They saw a group of horses come towards them and widened their eyes in fear. In the front of the herd was a black horse that was three times the size of a normal one. The horse's mane and tail were dark black with red tints and the eyes were a dark brown. The horse's hooves were colored blood red. They all jumped in surprise when the leader of the herd said, "Hello there. It seems you have kept your promise Rose."

Rose looked at the horse confused and then a magic circle appeared from her necklace. The circle turned black and then shattered, and Rose suddenly gasped. "Ara…now I remember! I did visit here one time while the others were playing at the beach. How'd I forget?"

"Don't you remember kiddo? You sealed off that memory and promised to come here with your human friends. Oh great dragon, how humble it is to see you again after a long week." The horse was obviously a girl now that the regulars paid attention to her voice after they got over the shock.

Rose then widened her eyes in surprise and said, "Right! That's what happened. Guess my spells work a little too well huh? Isn't that right…Seikatsu, the greatest female leader of the great horses of the hidden forest?" Rose finished with a sly smile and a proud glint in her eyes.

The regulars gasped and even fell in surprise. Here was another animal leader right in front of their eyes. That would explain the size. First, the huge king shark Crash, and now the hugest horse they have ever seen being the leader of the 'great horses of the hidden forest' as Rose said.

Rose and Seikatsu laughed at their faces. They thought it was just too funny.

Rose asked, "So how many are in your herd again Seikatsu?"

Seikatsu stopped laughing long enough to say, "Well…we've got about 15 mares, 20 stallions, and now umm…20 foals."

"Big number Seikatsu…yesterday we met with a group of 30 dolphins, but your herd has 55 horses in it now," Rose said sounding a little bit impressed. "We've got about 25 regulars here excluding me. Would your herd mind if they got horse rides?"

Seikatsu trotted over to her herd and talked to them. Five minutes later, she trotted back to Rose saying, "They have one condition. They want to see your horse transformation. Then they will give these humans all the rides they want around the lake. After all the lake is only about two feet deep around the shoreline. Any further in and you better be ready to swim," Seikatsu said with a smile all too like the two sadists in the group.

Rose looked at the regulars who were gulping in fear and wanting to ride the horses. She turned back to Seikatsu and said, "Deal." Rose went to the middle of the lake and hovered over the water. She could see what Seikatsu meant about the middle of the lake. She could barely see the ground because it was 50 feet deep. Rose had a golden aura surround her and transform her. After the light subsided, everyone, including the regulars and Seikatsu's herd, were surprised at the sight in front of them.

Rose was now a pure white horse with silver wings, a silver mane and tail. She had golden-colored hooves. On her left and right wing were the sun and moon respectively. On her forehead was a star birthmark. Rose was raising her wings up and down to hover above the water and she had a smile on her face. She then flew to Seikatsu slowly and asked, "Well? What do you think?"

Seikatsu was about to say something until her herd yelled, "Sugoi! That's awesome! Dragons are neat! What can you do while you're a horse?" The herd was yelling questions left and right and it took Seikatsu five minutes to try to calm them down.

The herd didn't calm down until Seikatsu, Ryoma, and Rose shouted, "Would you guys calm down!"

Shishido whispered to Atobe, "This leader seems more laid back than that Crash guy we met yesterday in the sea."

"True, very true," Atobe replied.

Rose turned to the regulars and asked, "Who wants to go for a horse ride around the lake?"

Some regulars immediately yelled "We do!" while the rest just nodded their heads in reply. Each regular got their own horse, and Ryoma climbed onto Seikatsu's back.

Seikatsu wanted Ryoma to so with her around the lake to see what Rose thought was so special about him. "Ready kid?"

"Che, always," Ryoma bluntly replied.

For the next few hours, the regulars took turns on the horses riding around the lake. Some even decided to have races which the horses took part in wanting to race each other as well. Seikatsu got the information she wanted on Ryoma and smiled while nodding at Rose.

Rose in turn smiled at Seikatsu and nodded her. Rose decided to hold another race between each school. "Choose one rider for your school, and Seikatsu will choose the three fastest horses in her herd for the race."

Hyotei put Hiyoshi as their rider, Rikkaidai put up Marui, mainly because he was the most enthusiastic, and Seigaku chose Ryoma to ride.

Seikatsu chose her three fastest herd members: Kosoku, Dasshu, and Sokudo.

The three riders chose their horses for the race. Hiyoshi got Sokudo, Marui got Kosoku, and Ryoma got Dasshu. The race was to lap around the lake a total of five times and then dash to the other side of the lake somehow where Rose was hovering above.

Rose yelled, "Three…two…one…START!"

The three riders went off sprinting except for one. Ryoma was only making his horse go out a gallop instead of a sprint like the other two were doing. Hiyoshi and Marui couldn't understand why and just kept going.

After around three laps, Ryoma was gaining on the other two racers while said racers were slowing down. The spectators didn't know why, but Rose and Seikatsu knew the reason. After the fourth lap, Hiyoshi's and Marui's horses were slowing down a bit more and Ryoma took this chance to get his horse to go a little faster to get in line with them. During the fifth lap, Ryoma and his horse had already gone past Marui and Hiyoshi and had just finished the lap. They then started another lap to get to Rose. Ryoma didn't want to know what was at the bottom of that lake they were racing around.

In the end, Ryoma won. Marui, Hiyoshi, Kosoku, and Sokudo were all tired and panting. Seikatsu told her herd members to drink some of the lake water and freshen up.

"How…did you win…Echizen…" Marui panted out.

"Easy really," Ryoma started, "you guys sprinted right off the bat which would obviously tire out the horses…"

"…while Ryoma started off with a slow gallop which would help his horse save energy…"Rose continued.

"…and then when your horses started to tire out…"

"…Ryoma decided to speed his horse a little faster and when your horses were really tired out…"

"…I went and decided to finish it," Ryoma finished.

The regulars and the herd had one thing in thought _'They are in complete synch…'_

"Thanks for letting the regulars have races along with your horses Seikatsu," Rose said.

Seikatsu nodded her head and asked, "Did you get enough pictures for your photo album?"

Rose pulled out her camera which she kept hidden this time and said, "Yeah I did." She saw all the regulars' faces of surprise when she pulled out her camera. "Thanks for the meeting," Rose said while transforming into her human form and fishing for something in her pocket. She pulled out a comb that was shaped like a horse and then tossed it to Seikatsu who caught it in her mane. "That's a sort of calling card. Whenever you need help just swing it against your neck and I'll send a dragon to help you out." With that, the regulars said goodbye to the herd and vice versa. After the goodbyes, Rose transported them all back home for dinner while she worked on the scrapbook.

After dinner, Rose showed them the 100 pictures she had taken this time. There were pictures of each horse, of the regulars with the horses, of the races, of all the regulars on the horses, and etc. The decorations were of little lakes, horses, combs, ribbon pieces, and flowers.

The regulars were certainly impressed with the photo album so far considering it had over 200 pictures in only a week or so. They knew there was more to come and were surprised how quick she could put this together.


	28. Trial 27: Wairudo

Chapter 27: Wairudo

"Saa…this time it's the mountains huh Rose?" Yukimura asked.

"Yes it is," Rose replied already walking up the mountain path.

"Do you think we'll meet any more animals like Seikatsu and Crash?" Kirihara asked his captain.

"Saa…who knows," Fuji answered for him.

"I wasn't talking to you Fuji-senpai," Kirihara said.

"Oh really…" Fuji replied opening his eyes.

This made Kirihara and the others back down trying not to anger Fuji in any way today.

"Come on already slowpokes! You're slower than a sloth!" Rose yelled from 20 feet away.

The regulars didn't want to anger her either so they just decided to jog to catch up to her.

"Did you visit this place Rose-chan?" Oshitari asked.

"I think I did, after all my feet know where to do, but I sure don't remember," Rose replied. The mountain was about two miles high and they were about an eighth in now. Rose decided to try to get an eighth in every hour so that they could go home after they reached the top.

"It could be the same case as yesterday Rose-chan," Jirou said.

"Yudan sezu ni ikou," Tezuka said.

"Hai buchou," Rose replied.

"What type of animals do you think are here nya?" Kikumaru asked excited.

"I'm thinking bears, mountain lions, lynx, foxes, and other things," Yanagi replied.

Oishi widened his eyes and then started ranting about how they might get attacked and how they can get hurt and other things until Rose just told him to be quiet and stop worrying.

"Don't worry Oishi-senpai. Besides you have me by your side. No one really messes with a dragon besides dragon hunters anyway," Rose said trying to calm Oishi down.

All of a sudden, the regulars started screaming.

Rose and Ryoma looked towards what the regulars were pointing at. Ryoma widened his eyes in surprise at what he saw. There was a group of mountain lions right above them along with some lynx and foxes. Behind them were bears.

The regulars looked in fear at the wild animals. They shrieked in fear when they saw Rose walk up to the group of mountain lions.

Rose just walked up casually to the mountain lions and asked, "Where is the guy anyway? I thought I told her that I would meet her here," Rose finished using another magic spell to let the animals talk.

One of the foxes came up and said, "She will be here soon. She says sorry for making you wait, but it seems that she had a meeting to go to."

"I see," Rose said nodding her head, "Why don't you make friends with my human friends then…just try not to hurt them please."

The animals nodded their heads and then walked towards the regulars. The bears picked some of the regulars up and started tossing them in the air. The mountain lions decided to carry some on their back and jump around the area onto every rock, log, and even pounce on some trees. The foxes and lynx decided to play around with some of the regulars playing tag, hide-and-seek, and other games.

Suddenly there was a massive roar in the distance. The roaring kept getting louder and louder until the regulars shrieked and fell to the ground. Rose looked up at the cause of the roaring, smiled, and said, "About time you showed up…Wairudo, the biggest lion in the world and the leader of this mountain."

Wairudo looked down at Rose and smiled showing its sharp teeth. Wairudo says, "Nice to see you again Rose. Seems you forget that I have meetings with the other leaders every once in a while." Wairudo was obviously a girl with her voice and sparkling blue eyes now that the regulars got a good look at her.

"Don't forget that you are the most unique leader of your area. After all, people or animals don't see a white lion the size of a cabin that often," Rose said tilting her head up to look at Wairudo.

Wairudo was indeed the size of a small cabin. Her claws were transparent and her tail was slightly silver. Her eyes were blue and her coat was the purest of white. "Yes, that is true. Now what has been going on while you have been waiting?"

"My friends were busy playing with the animals in your domain," Rose replied.

"I see. Can you show all of us your phoenix form please? Ever since I mentioned it to the others, they have been begging me to find you and show it to them."

"I can…if you follow one condition…" Rose walked up to Wairudo's head and whispered the condition into her ear.

Wairudo nodded and said, "Deal then."

Rose walked to the middle of the area and then a golden light surrounded her. In her place this time was a phoenix the size of Wairudo. Her beak was like that of a hummingbird and her tail was made of flames. Her wings were like those of an eagle but were rainbow-colored instead. Her eyes were still a golden shade like in her human form. Around her neck was a long ribbon that reached to her feet which was ten feet away from her neck. The ribbon was shining silver.

Again the screams went left and right at Rose yelling, "Sugoi! What can you do? How can..." and other questions like the Seikatsu's herd had asked. Again, Rose, Ryoma, and Wairudo had to scream to get them to be quiet.

For another few hours the animals and the regulars were playing games until Wairudo called Ryoma.

"What is it, Wairudo?" Ryoma questioned.

"I want to test your strength…to see if you are actually worthy of the last dragon of the world," Wairudo replied with a smirk and winked over at Rose who nodded in reply with a hint of fear for Ryoma in her eyes. "Why don't we fight…if you can even hit me, then I'll accept you."

"And if I lose?" Ryoma asked.

"Then you might die with this fight then," Wairudo said bluntly.

The regulars gulped in fear and prayed for Ryoma's safety.

The fight began with Ryoma calling transforming into his fighting form to call out his ice sword. Ryoma dashed towards the lion in hopes to slice her. When Ryoma slashed at her however, she quickly stepped to the right and slammed her paw down on him. Ryoma made it in time to dodge the attack but was hit by the rocks that came out of the crater the lion had just created.

Everyone thought '_Scary…and powerful.'_

The fight continued with Ryoma constantly trying to hit Wairudo and dodging her attacks. It looked like Ryoma was going to lose until everyone saw what he was doing.

The mountain area they were fighting on was starting to slowly cover in ice. With every attack that Wairudo dodged, the ground would become more and more slippery.

After a few more attacks, the ground was completely covered. Wairudo slipped on the ice and nearly fell off the cliff of the mountain. The only reason she survived was because Ryoma quickly got his earth sword out and attached one of the vines to a nearby tree and slung the other over to Wairudo to pull her up. Strangely even though the sword vines looked easy to break, they were easily able to carry Wairudo back up the 20 feet she fell off the cliff.

"Thank you Ryoma-kun. You are indeed worthy of the last dragon of the world," Wairudo said to Ryoma. She then turned to Rose and nodded her head and saw Rose's eyes twinkle in happiness.

Ryoma didn't know what was going on with Rose and honestly didn't want to know right now. He was still tired from the fight.

The group of mountain lions decided to do Rose and the regulars a favor by carrying the regulars on their backs and running them to the mansion. Their excuse was, "We need more exercise anyway," and the regulars complied.

Everyone was on a mountain lion and Rose asked to be in the lead with her mountain lion Akujunkan. Everyone agreed to let her be in the lead and knew the reason why as soon as they started running. They all smiled when they saw Rose taking out her camera in order to take pictures of them. They realized that she brought the camera again to take pictures of them with the animals and of this event. It wasn't every day that you got to ride a mountain lion that wouldn't try to kill you first.

By the time they got home, it was the afternoon and Rose quickly healed the mountain lions for their run back. She gave them all ribbons to tie onto their necks as a calling card. She gave little stickers to the sharks in the sea, a comb for Seikatsu, and she gave the animals in the mountain neck ribbons as calling cards. She went up to Atobe's printing room in order to print out the 100 pictures she took this time.

It took another hour for Rose to finish the new pages, and then she ran outside to show the regulars. When she opened up to the new pages, the regulars saw themselves playing with the animals, pictures of Ryoma's fight with Wairudo, the animal groups themselves, the animals and the regulars, and the regulars riding the mountain lions back home to the mansion. The decorations were of wild animals including lions, bears, foxes, lynx, and other animals they saw on the way. They also saw sword decorations with the pictures of Ryoma's fight.

Ryoma couldn't be more proud of Rose because of the way the scrapbook was turning out. He also couldn't help but wonder why the three leaders they met were talking about and why they always chose to do something with him whether it was a race, a fight, or even just something simple as talking. He decided to wait for Rose to explain it to him when she had the time.

The next three days the group was at the beach were the most boring. The regulars were sleeping, practicing, stretching, or doing something to prepare the national tournament back home. Rose figured there would be two months of competition before the finals of the tournament. She placed a long-ranged spell on the courts where the matches were held to expel any dragon hunters from entering until the finals of the competition. She didn't want any distractions for the regulars after they were so kind to her.

After three days, the group finally went home, said their goodbyes, and went on with their lives.


	29. Trial 28: National Battle! Start!

Chapter 28: National Battle! Start!

It was finally the end of the finals of the National tournament.

Seigaku won the finals against Rikkaidai 3-2. Ryoma finished the last match against Yukimura with his 'Samurai Drive' and the Pinnacle of Perfection.

All of Seigaku's old rival teams were watching as the Seigaku team members kept throwing Ryoma into the air.

After the tournament ended, the spectators tried to leave…but they couldn't. As soon as the people tried getting out the door, they would be pushed back so far that it looked like someone sent them flying.

When the first person tried to get out but couldn't, that's when Seigaku, Hyotei, and Rikkaidai knew what was going on.

Rose and Ryoma immediately told the three teams to go into the bleachers, and then the two dragon partners went to the middle of the courts.

The three teams got everyone to calm down including their rival teams and got them to just sit and wait in the bleachers while the next event went on.

"Be careful! Rose-chan! Echizen-kun!" the Seigaku regulars yelled out.

Rose and Ryoma gave them a nod in reply and then yelled, "Betaes! Sevink! Shao! Liniel! Tiaw! Aloc! Show your faces you cowards!"

The spectators were certainly surprised that Rose and Ryoma could yell so loud.

One at a time the six DH members appeared from their hiding places along the sides of the courts.

"You are lucky we let you finish your finals match. Otherwise you would be dead by now," Sevink said with a smirk on her face.

"Oh yeah? Let's see you try to kill us this time," Ryoma taunted back.

One word rang through the spectators' minds. 'Dead.' They couldn't stop that word from ringing through their heads.

"We will kill you boy and your little pet too!" Shao yelled at the two partners.

"Hah! Let's see you try it!" Rose yelled back. '_I don't like it when someone calls me a little pet. Why I ought to-'_

_ 'Calm down Rose. You'll get your chance to get back at them in a few. Let's just transform already.' _Ryoma said to Rose, trying to get her to calm down.

"Fine, fine, fine Ryoma, I'll calm down a bit. Now then…why don't we get started with this little dance shall we?" Rose said looking over to Ryoma with fire in her eyes.

Ryoma smirked back at her and says, "Let's."

Rose covered them both in a pure white light. After the light subsides, Ryoma and Rose appeared in their true fighting forms.

Ryoma wore a pure white sleeve-less shirt, silver shoes, a silver sash that went from his left shoulder to his right thigh, and white pants. He had his two most powerful swords, his fire and ice swords, in his left and right hand respectively. He wore a golden pendant or half of it anyway, around his neck and had an orange bracelet on his right hand and a yellow anklet on his left foot.

Rose was back in her dragon form. Her wings were golden and transparent and glittered in the sunlight. Her left wing had a red sun, her right wing had a yellow crescent moon, and a swirling gold and silver star was on her forehead. Her body color was silver, but as the color made its way down Rose's body, it slowly turned to gold by the time it reached the tip of her tail. Her front claws were stunning silver while her back leg claws were a glittering gold. On her left hand was an orange bracelet and her right leg had a yellow anklet as well. Two ribbons appeared from her ears. One was silver, one was gold, and both reached all the way to the base of her neck which was a total of 20 feet.

Everyone in the bleachers couldn't keep their eyes off the two. Then the tennis regulars who had faced Seigaku before yelled, "That girl was a dragon!"

Seigaku, Hyotei, Rikkaidai, DH, and the 'Dragon Pair' were already used to this type of reactions.

"So, your appearance has changed huh dragon?" Aloc asked.

"What do you think? Or are you blind?" Rose taunted.

"Why you!" Aloc started but was stopped by his partner Tiaw.

"Calm down Aloc. We aren't here to get ourselves killed," Tiaw said.

"Says the girl who got easily taken down by that pathetic excuse for a dragon," Aloc replied.

"Oh shut up," Tiaw responded.

"Excuse me!" Rose yelled out.

The DH members looked to her, their faces saying, "What?"

"As much as I would like you to argue amongst yourselves, I'd rather we fight so that you can put down this blasted shield that you have around this place."

"Fine then, let's fight," Betaes answered. The DH members drew out their weapons. "Don't think we'll lose so easily this time. We have trained in the months that we couldn't get near you. We won't lose to you this time."

"Then why has Rose already taken down Liniel, Tiaw, and Sevink already?" Ryoma said tilting his head with a smug smile.

"What?" Betaes asked. He turned around and saw that Ryoma was right. Rose was right behind them having the three said females coiled in her tail which was over 30 feet long.

Rose didn't want to waste time on the females considering they were significantly weaker than the males of the group. She quickly threw them in the air and knocked them to the side with her tail saying, "That should take care of them for this battle. Those girls ought to really quit, or do they really want to be humiliated further?"

"Rose! Watch out!" Ryoma yelled.

Rose turned to see Shao, Betaes, and Aloc charging straight at her with their weapons. She quickly flew up to get out of the way…but couldn't get up in time. Before she made it out of their reach, Aloc and Shao had thrown their weapons right at her wings. The two weapons flew past her wings creating a foot long scar at the top of her wings. Rose widened her eyes in pain and then quickly flew back to Ryoma with one eye closed in pain.

"And you're always telling me to be careful," Ryoma said teasingly.

"Uresai yo. I'm still better when it comes to fighting," Rose responded.

"I'm going to ignore that," Ryoma replied with a smile on his face seeing Rose was still as stubborn as ever.

"Let's finish them off then," Rose said standing up and spreading her wings. Her wings spread over the entire arena and the spectators screeched if the wings got too close to them. Rose quickly pulled back her wings a bit and said sheepishly, "Sorry about that."

Everyone laughed a little when they heard her. They then watched the battle in hopes of the 'Dragon Pair' winning.

"Let's go Ryoma!" Rose yelled while lowering her head down to his level.

"Aa," Ryoma replied putting his fire and ice sword on top of her head in between the ribbons.

The two ribbons attached to Rose's ears started to glow. One glowed red and the other glowed blue. The red and blue ribbons wrapped themselves around Ryoma's fire and ice sword respectively.

Ryoma turned his swords so that their tips touched above Rose's mouth which opened to reveal two orbs appearing from her two biggest fangs.

Rose had one fang concentrating her fire magic and the other concentrating her ice magic. She then concentrated both orbs into the center of her mouth. Her ear ribbons were doing their job of combining Ryoma's swords power.

The two orbs of energy grew and then shout out when the two yelled out, "Fire and Ice Dragon Cannons!" The two orbs shot out two beams that were a combination of fire and ice.

The three males showed that they did train when they were able to deflect the attacks to the sides.

Before the attacks could hit anyone, Rose and Ryoma cut off the magic power within the attack.

"Seems that you three did train," Rose said lifting her head up to glare at the three.

"Told you so. We aren't the same weaklings you defeated all those months ago. We are much stronger than our female partners," Betaes bragged.

"We could tell…considering they still can't take a hit from Rose," Ryoma said snickering.

Rose joined in with Ryoma along with everyone else that supported them.

Betaes, Aloc, and Shao were angered quite easily from this and then attacked Ryoma and Rose again.

The three were unfortunately much quicker than before because Rose was able to get Ryoma out of the way of the attack but couldn't save herself from being slashed along her left leg. She yelled out in pain and shook the three off quickly.

"Daijoubu Ro?" Ryoma asked worried.

"Aa. Daijoubu Ryo. Let's finish this quick before we get any more injuries," Rose replied with a thoughtful look on her face.

Ryoma nodded once and then jumped up high. Rose shot a dragon flame around him and activated Ryoma's dragon armor. This time the dragon wings, tail, and claws were silver instead of white.

"Let's finish this!" Rose and Ryoma yelled at the DH members. With that, the two partners charged at the DH members.


	30. Trial 29: The Real Fight Begins

Chapter 29: The Real Fight Begins

"Let's finish this!" Rose and Ryoma yelled at the DH members. With that, the two partners charged at the DH members.

The two opposing sides charged at one another hoping to take down the other.

Ryoma jumped into the air a second time while Rose shot a fireball at his feet. After that was set, the two started spinning towards the enemy and formed two red spirals. "Dragon Bomb!"

Aloc, Betaes, and Shao just smirked and raised their weapons. The two dragon partners hit the weapons and sparks started flying.

The two teams were each trying to gain the advantage. Unfortunately the injuries on Rose's leg took its toll and Rose was flung back towards her original spot. Ryoma couldn't handle the force of all three weapons and was also flung back. Both of them had multiple injuries on their arms from having their arms above their head during the impact.

Rose asked, "Daijoubu?"

"Aa. Daijoubu Ro," Ryoma replied. "What about you?"

"Nothing a little dragon blood won't fix after this fight," Rose said winking at Ryoma.

The two quickly shook off the pain from the injuries and then went into a different stance. Ryoma stood in front of Rose while Rose spread her wings into a circle around Ryoma. Both had their eyes closed and they started chanting.

The three DH members prepared their own shield from their weapons to prepare for the attack.

"Ryu Rose, the dragon…" Rose started.

Ryoma continued, "…Echizen Ryoma, the dragon master…"

"…both combined powers to protect those closest…"

"…to protect our world…"

"…to protect our friends…"

"…our family, our souls…"

"…our friendship, our ties…"

"…to protect those most precious to our hearts…"

"…use the power of our wills to strengthen this attack," Rose finished while opening her wings to show a path between Ryoma and the DH members while a orb of gold energy formed in the center of the wings and grew to the size of Wairudo.

The two suddenly opened their eyes. Ryoma threw his swords into the gold orb and turned it silver. The two suddenly yelled, "The most powerful emotion attack! Rave!"

The silver orb shot off from Rose's wings causing her to wince in pain because the blast had caused the ends of her wings to burn. Ryoma flinched when he felt the shock wave hit his legs causing them to get cut in several places.

The blast went off towards the three DH members and struck the weapons. The three weapons cut the orb's size to the size of a basketball. The weapons started to crack and then shattered causing multiple wounds to Aloc, Betaes, and Shao.

The DH weren't about to give up just yet because they pulled out another few weapons. They pulled out two swords, a spear-chain, a spear-mace, and two daggers.

"Seems that they were prepared for this fight huh Ryo?" Rose said finally shaking off the fire from her wings.

"Aa. Seems they did prepare for this," Ryoma said finishing wrapping bandages around his legs.

"Ready for another round Ryoma?" Rose said with new determination in her eyes.

"Hai!" Ryoma replied with as much determination. Ryoma put his arms in front of him and called out his fire and ice sword once again. He made the fire sword burn even brighter and bigger while making the ice sword become so cold the frost turned the ground to ice.

Rose whipped her tail and slammed in into the ground behind her to make rocks fly into the air. She then used her elemental ability to make those rocks form into many different swords.

"Ready Ryo?" Rose asked waiting to clobber their opponents into the dust.

Ryoma looked at her and answered, "Always!"

"Alright then! Scale and Sword Barrage!" Rose yelled while sending the rock swords and her own scales right at the DH members.

Ryoma pointed his ice sword at the DH members. The jewels implanted in the sword broke off and circled around in front of him. The six crystals started to give off sparks that formed in the middle to form an ice chunk. He yelled, "Ice Crystal Cage!" as the ice piece shot off towards the group members.

The DH members were confused but were smart enough to get out of the way. The DH members were not smart enough to dodge all of the swords and scales as they dodged the ice cage coming their way. They barely missed hitting the cage but were struck down with the scales and swords that Rose sent. Betaes tried to get up to find out that his arms and legs were frozen to the ground. Shao and Aloc were just fine because they were struck with the swords and scales that hadn't passed through the frost that Ryoma's ice sword gave off.

With that done, Betaes was out of commission for the fight leaving Aloc and Shao to be the last fighters.

Aloc was very angry with the two dragon partners and yelled, "This isn't over till one side is definitely unable to fight!"

"Why don't you give up? You are already hurt enough! Why don't you just retreat and leave me alone!" Rose yelled back.

"It is our duty to slay a dragon," Shao replied calmly.

"Well it is my duty to protect my partner," Ryoma answered being as calm as Shao.

"Well then, I guess it is your duty to die then!" Aloc shouted while charging straight at Ryoma with his spear-chain swinging above his head, ready to wrap around Ryoma's neck and kill him. He swung the weapon towards Ryoma and hoped to kill him.

Nothing happened to him.

When Aloc looked in front of him where he threw the weapon, he widened his eyes in surprise at what he saw.

Rose had gotten in front of the attack, but now her neck was the one the weapon wrapped around. She was closing her eyes painfully as the chain started to sink further into her neck with its blades.

Ryoma quickly tried to pull the weapon off Rose's neck but couldn't. He decided to use his ice sword to freeze the weapon and then shatter it.

Rose's neck was bleeding like crazy.

Ryoma tried to stop the bleeding by wrapping bandages around the girl's neck while rubbing in herbal medicine.

Rose kept her neck steady, trying to not just let her neck drop and accidently crush Ryoma.

Shao and Aloc watched with amazement at how Rose was acting. They grew up thinking that dragons were evil and that dragons would do anything to survive even if it hurt others in the process. And then, here is a dragon that breaks all of their teachings. A dragon that risked her own neck, literally, to save its master and cared about others just like humans.

"Would you be so kind as to go now? Shao? Aloc? I believe that your team has taken enough damage as it is," Rose said as soon as Ryoma finished patching up her neck.

"This battle isn't over!" Aloc yelled. Even though this dragon was different from the others, it didn't change the fact that he was a dragon hunter. He threw his spear-mace at the dragon and the weapon wrapped itself around Rose's wings causing them to close together and stop her from flying around which in turn caused her to hit the ground.

"Rose!" Ryoma yelled trying to get to Rose to shatter the mace. He shattered the weapon and saw the damage it caused. The base of Rose's wings was torn pretty badly but was still in good enough condition to keep her wings attached to her body. A little bit of healing after the fight would help her out, if she let him.

"Daijoubu Ryo. I'm just fine," Rose said standing back up. "They won't kill me. Not as long as I need to protect you. As long as I need to protect you…I will never die!" Rose roared out so loud that everyone had to cover their ears.

Rose then charged straight at the two remaining DH members and slammed them right into the wall with her tail. She then coiled her tail around the two, flung them into the air, and then shouted, "Sonic Wave!" while a blast of air came from her mouth and shot the two in the air. The two were blown away towards another wall while Rose fell to the ground once more because of the strain. She had never used this much magic before in her life and wasn't used to it. The air current that she used had a side effect as well. It started tearing up some of the skin around the base of her legs and arms. She quickly used her last remaining strength to say, "Let this be a warning to you. Attack my master again, and I will not guarantee your safety," she finished widening her eyes to emphasize her point.

When she saw the two gulp in fear, she teleported them to the other side of the world again. She knew that with the damage she and Ryoma caused them, they wouldn't be able to fight them for at least five months, and they wouldn't be able to get to her for another month more. In short, they had over half a year to recover from this fight and train a little more in hopes to reduce injuries.

The fight was over…for now.


	31. Trial 30: 1000 Words

Chapter 30: 1000 Words (Title taken from the song '1000 Words' from Final Fantasy X-2)

"That'll teach them to pick a fight with us," Rose said as she walked, or tried to, over to Ryoma.

"Daijoubu Ro? Those wounds are pretty bad," Ryoma asked concerned.

"It's fine. Just a little break will help it. But with this many wounds, it'll take at least a week to heal even with the dragon's heart blood," Rose said turning her head down.

"Souka…that's too bad," Ryoma said also looking away from Rose trying to avoid seeing the wounds.

Rose was running low on magic energy considering she nearly used it all in this fight. The wounds on her legs, arms, wings, and back were hurting like crazy. Any mortal would have already died from this many injuries. She was starting to feel dizzy, and her eyes started drooping. She transformed the two back into their human appearances and fell unconscious.

As soon as Rose turned Ryoma back to his original form, he saw her falling and immediately went to catch her. He turned her over in his arms to look at her face.

The regulars immediately went over to Ryoma as soon as they saw Rose collapse. When they saw Rose's body…they were horrified.

Rose's legs and arms had numerous deep cuts, her shoulders were bleeding and so was her back. Her back had scorch marks from the fire on her wings earlier. They knew that underneath her clothes there were even more injuries that were much worse. Around her neck were the bandages Ryoma put on her earlier, but blood was seeping through the bandages and trickled down her neck and stained her shirt.

The regulars couldn't move from their spots and widened their eyes in fear. Some of the regulars that were practically best friends with Rose fell to their knees. Everyone was shocked and couldn't do anything. Even the spectators that didn't know Rose was a dragon, started to cry at the sight of her injuries.

"Ro-Rose-chan…" Kikumaru whispered with tears in his eyes.

Oishi tried to comfort his doubles partner by hugging him and whispering soothing words into his ear.

The others couldn't believe that the wounds she suffered would be this harsh.

"She risked her life to protect us all, and **this** is her reward for it…" Gakuto whispered.

"She doesn't deserve this at all…not at all…" Hiyoshi whispered.

"Do you think she will be alright Ryoma?" Fuji asked hesitantly.

Ryoma looked at Fuji with a solemn look. He answered, "She will be fine…after a while. Even if she dies, as long as I live she will come back. She will always come back to fulfill her promise to protect me…but…I wish that she didn't have to become this injured to fulfill that promise. She hasn't even given me any permission to heal her just in case," Ryoma said trembling with fear in his voice. Everyone could see some tears falling from his eyes.

"I know that you're hiding things…" someone said.

The regulars looked around but saw no one saying those same words. They then looked over at Rose to see her mouth move along with the words.

"…using gentle words to shelter me.

Your words were like a dream,

But dreams could never fool me…

Not that easily…

I acted so distant then

Didn't say good bye before you left

But I was listening

You fight your battles far from me…

Far too easily…"

Everyone felt calmer as Rose said those words louder and louder. A light blue glow surrounded Rose's body and lifted her out of Ryoma's arms three feet into the air.

"Save your tears 'cause I'll come back

I could hear that you whispered

As you walk through that door

But still I swore to hide the pain

When I turn back the pages

Shouting might have been the answer

What if I cried my eyes out

And begged you not to depart

But not I'm afraid to say

What's in my heart…"

Rose's wounds were starting to heal as she started to slowly open her eyes and sing even louder. Her body was tilting over so that her feet finally touched the ground. Her outfit changed from her Seigaku uniform to the golden dress that she had gotten during her birthday.

"…'cause a thousand words

Call out through the ages

They'll fly to you

Even though I can't see I know they're reaching you

Suspended on silverwings

Oh, a thousand words

A thousand embraces

Will cradle you

Making all of your weary days seem far away

They'll hold you forever…"

Rose was now looking at them with a thoughtful look in her eyes. The regulars could have seen that the wounds were starting to disappear and saw that Rose was indeed healing herself by singing this song. They saw her smile at them with a thoughtful look in her eyes and couldn't help but smile back because she was ok.

"…oh, a thousand words

Have never been spoken

They'll fly to you

They'll carry you home and back into my arms

Suspended on silverwings

And a thousand words

Call out through the ages

They'll cradle you

Turning all of the lonely years to only days

They'll hold you forever…

Oooh…

A thousand words…"

Rose finished singing and then looked up at the regulars. She looked at them and told them, "Thank you. Your thoughts and feelings reached out to me. Because of the all of you, those '1000 Words', which is also what that song is called, helped my healing ability grow stronger. Thanks and now you know why I lied to you in the first place."

The regulars were tearing up while the stoic ones just gave a small smile at the girl. The ones that were practically sobbing ran over to the girl and crushed her in a death hug.

Rose knew that they were worried and hugged them all back whispering that she was all right into their ears. "I just need to recuperate for the next week, and I'll be good as new. The healing properties might have taken care of the scars, but the muscles, tissues, and bones that were damaged with take at least a week to recover."

The regulars pulled back from her and smiled. She knew that she was definitely accepted by all the them, including the spectators who didn't know her whatsoever.


	32. Trial 31: Recuperation

Chapter 31: Recuperation

"What did you just say?" Rose and Ryoma yelled.

Even though Rose was stuck in her bed for the next week, she still had enough strength to still yell. Ryoma stayed in her room to take care of her. All of the Seigaku, Hyotei, and Rikkaidai regulars were staying over at Ryoma's house in order to stay with Rose. Luckily Rose could still use some of her magic so that the house had enough guest rooms by manipulating the space in the house to fit all of the regulars in the house.

Now then, as for the yelling, the dragon partners were yelling at the other regulars because of the favor they just asked.

"Nya! We said we want to learn how to fight nya!" Kikumaru replied jumping up and down around Rose's bed.

"Why?" Rose asked looking at them all. "This fight has nothing to do with you anyway so-"

"What do you mean it has nothing to do with us?" Momo yelled interrupting Rose's statement.

"She meant what she said Momo-senpai. You guys don't have anything to do with this fight," Ryoma explained for Rose who was still tired from the fight earlier today.

"It involves you Echizen. That means we are all involved," Tezuka explained calmly.

Inui was about to write something in his notebook but Ryoma stated, "Write anything about this whole dragon business Inui-senpai, and I will personally burn all of your notebooks and get Rose to wipe your memory."

Inui stood frozen and agreed reluctantly.

"Saa…who knew Ryoma could be that threatening?" Fuji asked.

The others were wondering the same thing. They looked over back at Ryoma after thinking and saw him get up and leave the room. After a few minutes Ryoma came back in with a tray. On the tray were a few plates of something that the regulars couldn't recognize.

Ryoma set the plates onto the desk-table next to Rose's bed. He pulled out an herb-grinder from inside one of the table's drawers and grabbed one of the plates. He emptied the plate into the grinder and then did the same with the other plates. As he was adding in the contents on the plate, he was constantly grinding the substances so that it wouldn't overflow the bowl. When he emptied the last plate in, all the contents were already a fine powder.

Rose looked at Ryoma thoughtfully and was even speaking to him, not that the others knew. _'Seems that you find the herb stash I left in your room.'_

_ 'Who couldn't since you put it on top of my desk.'_

_ 'Funny. I was just trying to help you find it faster. Keep grinding those rare herbs into a fine powder and then make it into a gel to rub into my wounds like you did at the cave when we first met. But of course we will have to have everyone else outside of the room because of-'_

_ 'I get it! I get it! Don't repeat it!'_

"Touchy much Ryoma," Rose accidently said out loud.

"What?" Oishi asked.

Ryoma sighed and then said, "Don't suddenly switch from telepathy to actually talking Rose. You're going to confuse someone big time."

"You two can talk to each other by telepathy?" Gakuto asked.

"Che, what do you think?" Ryoma asked bluntly.

Rose giggled along with some of the regulars. Gakuto just frowned and looked away.

"So that's why you never talked during your doubles match except when necessary. You could talk to each other during the match," Fuji said having his eyes open.

"Yeah that was the reason why we didn't talk," Rose replied. Rose glanced over at Ryoma who was turning the powder into a gel. When he was finished he stood up and walked over to Rose with the gel in the bowl. When he sat down next to her, she said, "Now then, I ask that you guys please leave then," Rose finished with a sweet smile, a little too sweet.

Right after Rose smiled, the regulars were blown out of the room, the door shut behind them, and the door locked.

Rose then said to Ryoma, "Now then, where do you want to start putting the healing gel on me? You want to put the gel on my legs, my arms, my back, my neck, or my chest first?"

Ryoma just blushed as soon as she said chest.

"Never mind then, I'll put the gel on my chest myself. Just put it on my legs, arms, back and neck then," Rose said seeing his blush go away and sighing. She chuckled a little and then yelled out, "Stop eavesdropping you perverts!"

Right away the regulars that had their ears to the door immediately scurried off to tell the other regulars what they heard.

"Perverts," Rose mumbled.

"Mattaku. They can be such idiots," Ryoma said shaking his head.

Rose pushed away the blanket she had on and pulled up her shorts all the way up to her waist, like the bottom part of a bikini.

What was under her shorts was what surprised Ryoma. All the way from her feet all the way up to her waist were scars, cuts, and other marks on her legs. He quickly grabbed a brush from the table and put it in the herb gel. He pulled out the brush and then applied it to the scars on Rose's legs. He could count over 20 of them just by looking at the ones that were at least five inches long. When he was finished, he could see her legs covered in the green herb gel. He waited five minutes before the gel disappeared into the scars and healed them. He knew that the gel healed the outside and that her dragon heart would heal the inside wounds.

Rose turned to go to the bathroom and changed into a gold top that stopped five inches above her naval. The back of the tank top however exposed her entire back and was held by two straps, one going around her neck to the front and the other at the bottom of the shirt that tied in a small ribbon. Rose went onto her stomach on the bed and let Ryoma do the same thing that he did with her legs.

Ryoma couldn't help but look at all the wounds she had on her arms and back. There were scorch marks on her back from the fire on her wings. In the center of her back was a circle made out of dashes, and all over her arms and back were scars and cuts at least two inches long. He started applying the gel onto her back and arms the same way he did for her legs. When he was finished he waited another few minutes for the gel to sink into the wounds to heal them.

While the two were waiting the door suddenly slammed open and some of the regulars, namely Kikumaru, Momo, Gakuto, Kirihara, Ohtori, and Oishi, came in going to ask a question. At least they were going to until they saw what Rose was wearing. They saw that she had a small tank top that exposed her entire back and that she was wearing a mini-skirt. They blushed at the sight and then went out of the room.

Rose and Ryoma blinked at where the regulars were a minute before and then at each other. They shrugged and whispered, "Baka senpai-tachi," and went on to wait for the gel to sink into the wounds.

After the gel sunk into the wounds on Rose's back and arms she sat up and turned over to Ryoma lifting her chin in the process. Ryoma grabbed a cloth from the table beside them and dipped it into the gel. He then took it out and wrapped it around Rose's neck. After the gel sunk it, he did the same thing five times because only a thin layer of gel was applied considering that most of it got stuck to the cloth.

After an hour of work, Rose's scars and wounds were all healed up, and now all she had to do was wait a week for her inside wounds to heal.


	33. Trial 32:Decisions,Conditions,Permission

Chapter 32: Decisions, Conditions, Permission

While Rose and Ryoma waited for the regulars to show up, they talked.

Ryoma started by asking, "What do you think Rose?"

"About what Ryoma?" Rose responded looking at him with a confused face.

"About them fighting…"

"Oh…that. Well I don't know. I mean they don't have anything to do with this fight."

"I know that, but they still insist on learning how to fight along with us."

"Do you remember what he said Ryoma?"

"You mean what Tezuka-buchou said?"

"Yes I mean him."

"He said that if I was involved, then so were they."

"Do you think they mean that?"

"Probably, but with my senpai-tachi you never know."

Rose giggled at his response and responded, "Maybe we should train them but…"

"You're not sure…are you?" Ryoma said with a serious tone.

Rose looked at Ryoma with a serious face. "I don't want them to get hurt because of me. This whole mess started because I made a contract with you. If we never made that contract, none of this would have happened! You wouldn't have gotten hurt and would have never been targeted by those DH members!" Rose yelled practically crying.

Ryoma looked at Rose with worry evident on his face. He couldn't stand it when she cried. He quickly went up to her and hugged her saying, "It's none of your fault Rose. If we, no I was a little more careful, you wouldn't be hurt this badly. It's not your fault that the others know either, I was the one who encouraged you to let out the secret. It's not your fault Ro; it's not your fault." Ryoma kept repeating that phrase trying to get her to stop crying.

A few seconds later, the door opened to reveal the Seigaku, Hyotei, and Rikkaidai regulars. Many of them had tears in their eyes seeing Rose like this. They went over and tried to hug and comfort her. The others stood by the door wondering about what they could do to help.

After a few minutes, Rose finally calmed down enough to stop crying, but she kept looking at the ground in front of her.

"Did you make a decision yet?" someone asked breaking the silence in the room.

"What?" Rose answered looking up at the person which was Tezuka.

"I said have you made a decision yet?" Tezuka asked again.

Rose looked away and her eyes kept darting from one spot to another.

The regulars all knew that she was deciding whether or not to let them train with her and Ryoma or not. They all knew that the training was tiring considering that Ryoma could still fight even after the match with Yukimura at the Nationals.

Rose was deciding whether or not to let the regulars fight along with them. She cut off the mental connection so that Ryoma could not tell what she was thinking. _'Should I or shouldn't I. For one, they can help reduce the damage that I and Ryoma take during a fight. But, that would put them in danger of being killed. Unlike Ryoma, they can't fight. Maybe if they agree to a couple of conditions then I can train them.'_ "That settles it."

The regulars were certainly surprised by her outburst but did not object.

Kikumaru asked, "That settles what?"

"I will train you," Rose started to answer until she was interrupted by the regulars shouting for joy, "but on a few conditions."

The regulars immediately paid attention to Rose and the captains asked what the conditions were.

"The conditions are somewhat simple and difficult at the same time," Rose said.

"Well what are they?" Yukimura asked.

"Well then since you are so eager, I'll tell you now instead of next week when I'm all better. Since we have around half a year of vacation now that summer is here, we can go into the different terrain around the country of Japan for training right?"

The captains and regulars nodded.

"Well then, you are going to have to ask for permission to go away for a few months for training around the country of Japan. Then if you have permission, Ryoma and I will take you with us for training until the start of school. You will have to appear during every practice unless you have a good excuse and that does include getting sick or injured badly during practice. You will also have to tell me when you are starting to get tired so that you can stop. I don't want anyone passing out during our training sessions."

The regulars nodded in agreement with Rose's conditions so far.

Rose continued saying, "Also, you will have to choose a weapon as your specialty. It can be any weapon really. The last condition will be the toughest to manage."

"What is it?" Atobe asked.

"During a battle, you might have to risk your lives in the fight. If you are in any danger at all, make sure you call me and I will come over and protect you. Unlike Ryoma, you don't have any real fighting experiences so he can take care of himself for a while. I'm sure Sanada has some fighting experience as well, so he should be fine. If you have any chance of dying…I need you to pull out of that battle right away," Rose finished with a serious look on her face.

The regulars were surprised at the things she said. They were more surprised that she would want them to pull out of a fight if they were in any sort of trouble.

"Why should we pull out nya?" Kikumaru asked.

Hiyoshi added, "It isn't like a man to run away from a fight."

Rose looked at them all and said, "It is more of a man to retreat from a fight that someone else started, than die when they could've avoided it. The dragon code states and I quote 'Fight your hardest in a fight. But if the fight never included you at first, stay away from certain death. Let the people finish the fight they started but don't die for someone else's cause.' That is what the law states, and I don't want you dying because of me."

"Souka…" the regulars said.

The regulars looked down in thought, and Rose knew that they were thinking about whether to train with her or not.

The regulars then looked at each other and nodded.

Tezuka answered for all of them by saying, "We will agree with your conditions and follow them until the end."

Rose and Ryoma smiled at their response and said, "Well then, you should all call your families to get permission for the training."

The regulars each got out their cell phones and went to each of their guests rooms to call their family.

Each of them finally got permission from the family to go around Japan until school started again in four months.

They went back to Rose saying they had permission.

Rose responded by saying, "During the next week, start packing for the four month training session. Don't worry about the traveling expenses; I could probably fly you around now that everyone in the Japan knows that I'm a dragon. Next week, after I'm all healed, I'll fly us to the first area. You should all be familiar with the area since you have been there before."

"Where is it?" Jirou asked who woke up when Rose was explaining the conditions.

"When were you awake?" Shishido asked surprised.

"He has been awake since I was explaining the conditions. And I will tell the area once we get there. But we will be taking another route other that the one we took before," Rose finished with a sly smile on her face.

The regulars were just glad that she was back to her old self again. Now they just had to wait until Rose was all better so that they could start their training.

* * *

**Important: For all of the regulars, what should each of their weapons be. Please write a review to tell me your opinion about the weapons they should use. If there isn't enough reviews I will create a poll for each of Seigaku's, Hyotei's, and Rikkaidai's weapons out of a range of weapons I know of (which isn't that many). Write your opinion on the weapons that Seigaku (Tezuka, Oishi, Kikumaru, Kawamura, Inui, Kaidoh, Fuji, Momo), Hyotei (Atobe, Kabaji, Gakuto, Oshitari, Ohtori, Hiyoshi, Shishido, Jirou), and Rikkaidai (Yukimura, Sanada, Yagyuu, Yanagi, Kirihara, Marui, Jackal, Niou) should have. Also the weapons have to be old-fashioned like swords, daggers, that sort of thing. Nothing too modern like guns, tazers (don't know how to spell it), or anything of that sort.**


	34. Trial 33: H2H Combat

Chapter 33: H2H Combat

"You mean to tell me you actually finished packing?" Ryoma asked.

The regulars all nodded their head for their answer.

"You have to be kidding me, it's only been one day since we made the deal," Rose said when she saw the bags in their new training partners' hands. "You guys are either really bored or really excited to train with us."

Half of them agreed with the second portion while the others just said, "We want to be prepared."

Tezuka added, "Yudan sezu ni ikou."

"So what do you plan to do now? Since you already finished packing, and I still need to be in bed for a week," Rose said.

The regulars widened their eyes and thought _'Hadn't planned that far yet. Woops.'_

"You didn't plan that far did you?" Ryoma questioned.

Everyone slowly shook their heads no.

Ryoma and Rose sighed. Rose said, "Ryoma can you test their hand-to-hand combat skills to see how far they are so far. If they can match you, then the training will be somewhat easier. If not, I have my work cut out for me."

"Sure Ro. Come on senpai-tachi. Follow me," Ryoma said while heading out of Rose's room out into the training area.

* * *

The regulars followed Ryoma outside of Rose's room and into another room. The room was plain white with foot length square tiles.

"This…is the training area?" Momo asked not really impressed.

"Well it is…when you don't have it activated," Ryoma answered.

"Activated? What do you mean brat?" Atobe asked impatiently.

"I'll show you if you don't keep interrupting me monkey king," Ryoma responded.

The regulars watched as Ryoma walked to the center of the room and put his hand into the center of the floor. "Scan start."

"Voice accepted. Hand-print scanning starting," the room echoed.

The regulars could all see a light scan Ryoma's hand and then stop. "Hand print accepted. Please stand up for the next tests."

Ryoma stood up and as soon as he did he was surrounded by some machines.

"Eye scan starting," one of the machines resounded as it scanned Ryoma's eyes. "Eye scan accepted."

"Blood scan starting," another machine said as it took a needle and pierced Ryoma's arm. "Blood type accepted."

"Voice scanning starting," the last machine said.

"Echizen Ryoma, dragon master, code 1224," Ryoma stated.

"Voice scan accepted," the machine said.

All three machines stated, "Welcome, Master Ryoma. Please use the room to its full ability." With that the machines disappeared and left Ryoma standing in front of a computer-like machine on a stand.

"This place has that many tests?" Gakuto asked interested.

"Saa…seems so neh?" Fuji responded.

"There needs to be so many tests just in case. This place is not only the training area but also records our training. If anyone else got into it, they could steal all the information we have on our fighting skills and tactics," Ryoma answered for the group. "Now, what do you think we should fight on?"

"What?" Kirihara asked.

"I mean, what type of area is best for hand-to-hand combat?" Ryoma answered.

"Ii data…a forest area would do just fine," Inui answered.

"A forest area it is then," Ryoma said agreeing with Inui. "Echizen Ryoma, dragon master, code 1224, area: Forest," Ryoma said to the machine in front of him.

"Voice of Echizen Ryoma recognized. Simulation starting now," the machine responded and with that the room started to glow. A pure green light surrounded the room and then disappeared.

The regulars gasped in surprise at what they saw. They saw an actual forest in the room they were in.

"The area may be a simulation, but it will be real for now so try not to get hurt," Ryoma responded while punching a tree to further explain. "So, who's first?"

"First for what?" Shishido asked.

"First to fight me hand-to-hand," Ryoma responded.

"I'll go first," Tezuka responded.

"Fine then. Oh, buchou. Just because you are my tennis captain doesn't mean that I will go easy on you," Ryoma said.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Tezuka responded.

They both made it to the center of the forest while the others stood back to watch.

The fight started when Ryoma charged at Tezuka with his fist pulled back.

Tezuka easily dodged it but thought something was wrong when he saw Ryoma smirk. What he didn't expect was Ryoma's leg to connect with his stomach and send him flying into a tree.

The other regulars widened their eyes in shock and others gasped out of pure fear. They didn't know that Ryoma would dare do that to his own captain. The others were scared about how they would handle.

"Mattaku buchou. You're always telling people 'Yudan sezu ni ikou.' I told you I wouldn't go easy on you. Make sure you pay attention to what your opponent is doing next time," Ryoma stated helping his captain up and over to the other regulars. He then called out, "Who's next?"

The next fights lasted for about five minutes each before Ryoma took care of each of them. The only ones that could match Ryoma were Fuji, Kirihara, Sanada, Yukimura, Kawamura, Kikumaru, and Gakuto. Their matches were over ten minutes.

"Rose has a lot of work to do. During the next week that she is stuck in her room, I'll help her out a bit," Ryoma stated as soon as he finished the last fight. He was even breaking a sweat while his other opponents were on the floor panting. "During the next week, we will be working on your fighting skills. That way the training will be somewhat easier.

The regulars nodded their head in agreement because they couldn't talk since they were still catching their breath. Ryoma walked over to a shed in the corner of the room and then activated a few machines. A few minutes later, Ryoma walked out with three machines following him each carrying a tray with eight cups. The cups were a deep brown.

The Hyotei and Rikkaidai regulars wouldn't look at it because they didn't know what it was.

"Is that…" Kikumaru started.

"Yes, it's Rose's version," Ryoma answered having a cup in his own hand.

The Seigaku regulars gratefully took a drink and drank it. The other regulars saw it and hesitantly took a cup and drank it. They were certainly surprised when it tasted like hot chocolate.

Looks like this next week was going to be exciting before the real training even begun.

* * *

**Important****: Don't forget to review about the regulars weapons. The regular will have the weapon that is mentioned the most. Don't forget to write your opinion on the weapons for the regulars I mentioned in the last announement at the end of the last chapter. Thanks in advance for reviewing.**


	35. Author's Note: REWRITING

Sorry to all those that thought this was another chapter. I'm actually planning on rewriting this story completely because now that I take a look at it, I go 'How bad of a writer was I last year?' I also noticed how Mary-Sue I made Rose in the story and am planning to change it up. I'm going to keep some parts but completely change others. When I have at least half of the story rewritten I'll start posting, because I'm not just changing grammar and spelling, I am literally rewriting most of it in order to make it better, hopefully. I'm glad for all those that followed this story and no I will not take it down because it is my first work, so I could never take it down. I'll just have this be the last 'chapter' and post the rewrite as a different story. Look forward to it and in the summary of the rewrite, I will mention that it is a rewrite of the story. See you all soon!


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